PROCEEDINGS 



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THIRD DECADE, 



HELD IN THE CITY OP PHILADELPHIA, DEO. 3d and 4tli, 18^J 



PHOXOGRAPHIC RKPORT RY IIKNRY M. PARKHURST. 



NEW YORK: 
AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY, 

Ko. 48 BEEKlLiN STREET. 
1864. 






THE THIRD DECADE 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 



In accordance with the previous action of the Socieiy, at the 
occurrence of its First and Second Decades, and in compliance with 
the generally expressed wishes of its members and friends, the Ex- 
ecutive Committee caused the following Circular Letter of Invitation 
to be issued, in November last : — ^ 

Boston, November 12, 1863. 

The American Anti-Slavery Society will commemorate the Thirtieth Anni- 
versary of its formation, on Thursday and Friday, Dec. 3 and 4, 1863, at Concert 
Hall, in the city of Philadelphia, commencing at 10 o'clock, A. M., of each day. 
Its object, as originally announced, and uncompromisingly adhered to for the last 
thirty years, was and is the immediate and entire abolition of Slavery in the United" , 
States, by all those instrumentalities sanctioned by law, humanity and religion ; ' 
and thus " to deliver our land from its deadliest curse, and to wipe out the foulest 
stain which rests upon our national escutcheon." Its measures were proclaimed to 
be, and ever have been, " such only as the opposition of moral purity to moral cor- 
ruption, the destruction of error by the potency of truth, the overthrow of preju- 
dice by the power of love, and the abolition of Slavery by the spirit of 
repentance." 

At its approaching celebration, the Society will have the sublime privilege to an- 
nounce, as the result, primarily, of its disinterested, patriotic, and Christi£\n labors, 
the emancipation of three millions three hundred thousand slaves, by the 
fiat of the American Government, on the 1st of January last. 

It is not only to revive the remembrance of the long thirty years' warfare with 
the terrible forces of Slavery, and to acknowledge the hand of a wonder-working 
Providence in guiding the way of the little Anti-Slavery army thr^)ugh great moral 
darkness and many perils, that we now invite this meeting, but also to renew, in the 
name of humanity, of conscience, and of pure and undefiled religion, the demand 
for the entire and speedy extinction of Slavery in every part of our country. 

Your attendance at this Commemorative Meeting, in Philadelphia, on the 3d and 
4th of December next, is respectfully solicited and cordially desired. 

In behalf of the Executive Committee, 

WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON, President. 

Charles C. Burleigh, ) 

,,. „ (• Secretaries. 

Wendell Phillips, ) 



4 THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 

In pursuance of the preceding Call, the American Anti-Slavert 
Society celebrated the completion of its Third Decade at Concert 
Hall, in Philadelphia, December od and 4th, 18G3, commencing at 
10 o'clock, A. M. 

The Hall was decorated with the beautiful banners of the Phila- 
delphia Female Anti-Slavery Society, on which were inscribed appro- 
priate mottoes from the writings of Whittier, W. H. Burleigh, and 
others. In the rear of the platform, the American flag, now at 
length the symbol of Liberty, hung in beautiful festoons, extending 
each way from an Eagle and National Shield in the centre, and sur- 
mounted by a white banner or band, on which were inscribed, in 
conspicuous black letters, the words, " UNION AND LIBERTY." 
At different points, large white cards were displayed, on which were 
inscribed appropriate sentences from Washington, Jefferson, Mad- 
ison, Monroe, Randolph, Clay, and other eminent men of the past. 

The Hall was filled at an early hour, and some time was spent in 
mutual greetings and congratulations on the part of friends of the 
cause from difierent parts of the country, who all appeared to share 
one common feeling of thanksgiving and hopefulness. 

The meeting was called to order by William Lloyd Garrison, 
the President ; and on motion of J. Miller McKim, to complete 
the organization, Aaron M. Powell, of Ghent, N. Y,, and Wendell 
Phillips Garrison, of Boston, were appointed Secretaries pro tern. 

Mr. McKiM also moved the appointment of a Business Committee 
of twelve, to prepare work for the meeting, and to receive resolutions 
and other papers, and report them at their discretion. 

The motion was agreed to, and the following were appointed as 
such Committee: — James Miller McKim, Mary Grew, Aaron 
M. Powell, Lucretia Mott, Robert Purvis, Olia'er Johnson, 
John T. Sargent, Sarah Pugh, Theodore Tilton, Abraham 
Brooke, Alfred H. Love. 

Rev. Samuel J. May offered a very appropriate and impressive 
prayer. 

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT. 

Beloved Friends and Coadjutors: — 

This is the Third Decade since the formation of the American 
Anti-Slavery Society in this city. It will, in all probability, be the 
last one that we shall hold ; for who now believes that slavery is to 



AMERICAX ANTI-SLAVEUY SOCIKTY. 

continue ten years longer in our land, rendering necessary ten years 
longer of anti-slavery effort for its overthrow ? "We trust that we 
are very near the juuilee. We know that wo are a great deal nearer 
to it than when we first believed. What was sown in weakness is 
raised in power; what was sown in dishonor is raised in glory. All 
the signs of the times, in regard to our glorious cause, are cheering 
in the highest degree. It is no longer a question confiued to a few 
humble individuals, as against a mighty nation ; but it is a nation 
rocking as by an earthquake, in travail with this tremendous issue. 
And now, instead of words, the question is debated upon the battle- 
field, at the cannon's mouth ; and, undoubtedly, through this war of 
judgment, God means to vouchsafe deliverance to all in bondage. 

Welcome and benediction, upon this thrilling and joyous occasion, 
to those who entered earliest into the field of labor ; who have gone 
through with all its toils, its sufferings, its sacrifices, its perils; and 
who have been graciously permitted to live to see this gladsome day ! 
Welcome and benediction to those who came in at a later period, and 
to the still newer converts to our cause ! Welcome and benediction 
to all ! We may now confidently hope that our labors are drawing 
near to an end, so far as the abolition of slavery is concerned; but 
our labors in the field of a common humanity, and in the cause of 
reform, are never to terminate here, except with our mortal lives. 
With the liberation of the millions in bondage, we are to have a 
new field of philanthropy opened to us on a colossal scale, that will 
tax our means, our generosity, our sympathy, our efforts, to the 
utmost extent, to meet the solemn demands upon us, on the part of 
those houseless, homeless, penniless millions, who are coming forth 
from the house of bondage. This is a work of mercy and benevo- 
lence, in the doing of which we believe the great mass of the people 
of all denominations, and parties, and sects will flow together, and 
be glad to make a common atonement, though at so late a day, for 
the wrongs and outrages that have been heaped upon those held in 
brute servitude for so many generations. 

One of the Secretaries will now read some of the numerous letters 
which have been received from those whose circumstances or engage- 
ments prevent their being here. Of course, if all who would like 
to be here could be gratified, it would be the largest meeting ever 
convened in the city of Philadelphia. Thousands and tens of thou- 
sands are regretting that they cannot be with us on this occasion. 

The first letter I hold in niv hand is from one who deserves to be 



6 THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 

held in honorable and lasting remembrance for his early, devoted, 
and long-continued services in our cause ; I mean the first Presi- 
dent of the American Anti-Slavery Society, once the distinguished 
merchant philanthropist of the city of New York, Arthur Tappan; 
the benefactor to whom I owe my liberation from the Baltimore 
prison in 1830; and but for whose interposition at that time, in all 
probability, I never should have left that prison, except to be carried 
out to be buried.* I think it is some twenty years since I had the 
pleasure of looking him in the face; but I could do no less than to 
send him a letter of invitation to be present at this commemorative 
meeting, renewing my expression of gratitude for all his kindness to 
me personally, and my admiration for all he had done in the cause 
of the oppressed; and I was glad to receive this letter in reply. 

[ The letter was read, as follows, by Wendell Phillips Gtarrison, 
one of the Secretaries : ] 

New Haven, Nov. 17, 1863. 
Wm. Lloyd Gtarrison : 

Dear Sir, — Few events could give me so much pleasure as the 
receipt of your note of the 12th inst. During the years that have 
intervened since we last met, I have often recalled the time when we 
were united in working for the slave, and regretted that any occur- 
rence should have estranged us from each other. 

I shall be glad to attend the meeting at Philadelphia, but my ad- 
vanced age (78th year) and growing infirmities may prevent. 
I am, truly, your friend, 

ARTHUR TAPPAN. 

The President. The next letter is from one of the signers of 
the Declai-ation of Sentiments; a name known and honored through- 
out the civilized world; the poet of America, John G. Whittier, 
(applause,) who has done so much by his writings as a poet in aid of 
our glorious movement, that I have no words to express my sense of 
the value of his services. There are few living who have done so 
much to operate upon the mind and conscience and heart of our 
country for the abolition of slavery as John Greenleaf Whittier : 

Amesbury, 24th 11th mo., 1863. 
My Dear Friend: 

I have received thy kind letter, with the accompanying circular, 
inviting me to attend the commemoration of the Thirtieth Anniver- 
sary of the formation of the American Anti-Slavery Society, at Phil- 

*See Appeudix A. 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. . 7 

adelphia. It is with the deepest regret that I am compellod, by the 
feeble state of my health, to give up all hope of meeting thee and my 
other old and dear friends on an occasion of so much interest. 
How much it costs me to acquiesce in the hard necessity, thy own 
feelings will tell thee better than any words of mine. 

I look back over thirty years, and call to mind all the circum- 
stances of my journey to Philadelphia, in company with thyself and 
the excellent Dr. Thurston, of Maine, even then, as we thought, an 
old man, but still living, and true as ever to the good cause. I 
recall the early grey morning when, with Samuel J. May, our col- 
league on the Committee to prepare a Declaration of Sentiments for 
the Convention, I climbed to the small " upper chamber " of a col- 
ored friend to hear thee read the first draft of a paper which will 
live as long as our national history. I see the members of the Con- 
vention, solemnized by the responsibility, rise one by one, and sol- 
emnly affix their names to that stern pledge of fidelity to freedom. 
Of the signers, many have passed away from earth, a few have fal- 
tered and turned back, but I believe the majority still live to rejoice 
over the great triumph of truth and justice, and to devote what re- 
mains of time and strength to the cause to which they consecrated 
their youth and manhood thirty years ago. 

For, while we may well thank God and congratulate one another 
on the prospect of the speedy emancipation of the slaves of the 
United States, we must not for a moment forget that, from this hour, 
new and mighty responsibilities devolve upon us to aid, direct and 
educate these millions, left free, indeed, but bewildered, ignorant, 
naked and foodless in the wild chaos of civil war. We have to undo 
the accumulated wrongs of two centuries; to remake the manhood 
that slavery has well-nigh unmade ; to see to it that the loug-oppres- 
sed colored man has a fair field for tdevelopment and improvement ; 
and to tread under our feet the last vestige of that hateful prejudice 
which has been the strongest external support of Southern slavery. 
We must lift ourselves at once tQ the true Christian altitude where 
all distinctions of black and white are overlooked in the heartfelt 
recognition of the brotherhood of man. 

I must not close this letter without confessing that I cannot be 
sufficiently thankful to the Divine Providence which, in a great mea- 
sure through thy instrumentality, turned me so early away from what 
E.06ER Williams calls " the world's great trinity, pleasure, profit 
and honor," to take side with the poor and oppressed. I am not 
insensible to literary reputation. I love, perhaps too well, the praise 
and good will of my fellow-men ; but I set a higher value on my name 
as appended to the Anti-Slavery Declaration of 1833, than on the 
title-page of any book. Looking over a life marked by many errors 
and shortcomings, I rejoice that I have been able to maintain the 
pledge of that signature; and that, in the long intervening years, 

" My voice, though not tho loudest, has been heard 
Wherever Freedom raised her cry of pain." 



8 THIRTIKTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 

Let me, tlirougli thee, extend a warm greeting to the friends, 
whether of our own or the new generation, who may assemble on the 
occasion of commemoration. There is work yet to be done which 
will task the best efforts of us all. For thyself, I need not say 
that the love and esteem of early boyhood have lost nothing by the 
test of time ; and 

I am, very cordially, thy friend, 

JOHN G. WHITTIER. 

Wm, Lloyd Garrison, President A. A. S. Society. 

The reading of the above letter was interrupted by the arrival of 
a delegation of colored soldiers from Camp William Penn, who, as 
they advanced to the platform, were greeted by a general outburst of 
applause. These soldiers, having taken the seats assigned to them 
on the platform, immediately behind the officers of the Society, re- 
mained as evidently interested and intelligent auditors during the 
whole of the protracted morning session. 

The President. The nest letter is from a very near, and dear, 
and revered friend, Hon. Samuel Fessenden, of Portland, Maine, 
father of Hon. William Pitt Fessenden, who is one of the leading 
Senators of the United States. He is now, of course, advanced in 
years; and, having nearly lost his eyesight, is compelled to use an 
amanuensis in order to have his sentiments recorded. Among a 
host of friends and coadjutors, I hardly know of one whom I esteem 
and reverence more than I do Samuel Fessenden, of Maine. The 
circumstances in which I became acquainted with him are to me 
peculiarly touching, as they are certainly enduring in my recollection. 
I tiust he will be spared to witness, before his removal, the utter 
extermination of slavery from our country, and to join in the song of 
jubilee. 

Portland, Nov. 23, 1863. 
My Ever Dear Friend : 

It was with very great pleasure that I received your kind notice of 
me of the 12th of November. You do me but justice in believing 
that I entertain the same views as I ever did in regard to that dread- 
ful curse, the system of Southern slavery as it has existed and been 
practised in the great Southern section of our country, and which we 
are combatting in the present war. That system, in my judgment, 
most entirely embodies the cruelty of Moloch, the brutality of Belial, 
and the avarice of Mammon ; and while, with you and others, I 
entertain the same views as to its enormity, I cherish the hope, and 
I believe I may now say the expectation, that God is about to bring 



THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 9 

this dreadful enormity, — a sin which, next to the crucifixion of the 
Savior, I esteem the most heinous ever committed by any of the 
human race, — to a speedy and final end. 

I might almost say, that I regret that the infirmity of eighty years' 
pilgrimage on earth has made me unable to attend the coming meet- 
ing of the Anti-Slavery Society; but I am almost totally blind, and 
it ujight well be supposed that, trembling upon the extreme verge of 
four score years, I perceive myself that the powers and faculties of 
my mind, such as they were, have so far railed as to render me inca- 
pable of doing any more for the benefit of the cause which you have 
so ably adv'ocated — that of the total abolition of slavery in our 
country. 

I shall not probably live to see the total destruction of this ac- 
cursed system, but feel assured that it must soon talce place, and that 
I now see those glimpses of its approaching end which enable me 
with confidence to say, " Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in 
peace, for mine eyes have seen of thy salvation," the glory of the 
people of God, and the returning happiness of our suffering country, 
in the firm establishment and perpetuity of our free institutions. 

With sentiments of the most cordial esteem, I am, in the sacred 
cause of liberty and humanity, truly and faithfully your friend, 

SAMUEL FESSENDEX. 
To William Lloyd Garrison. 

The President. The next letter is from one who was not with 
us in the early part of our struggle, but who has done a noble ser- 
vice since he joined us some years ago, in the common effort for the 
emancipation of those in bondage — James Freeman Clarke, of 

Boston. 

Jamaica Plain, Nov. 26, 1863. 
Dear Sir : 

* * * It would give me great pleasure to accept your invita- 
tion, which I feel honored in receiving. Unhappily, I can hai-dly 
hope to be able to visit Philadelphia at that time. But whether 
there or elsewhere, I shall in spirit be with you, and shall sympathize 
with your satisfaction and pride in feeding that the result for which 
3'ou have labored so long and so earnestly is almost attained. That 
slavery in America is virtually at an end, I cannot doubt. The 
great act of emancipation by the President, under his power as Com- 
mander-in-Chief — a power given him by the Constitution — is an 
act proceeding directly from the Constitution itself, and is therefore 
a part of the highest law known in the land. The Border States, 
exempted from the operation of that great edict, will themselves, 
following Missouri and Maryland, decree emancipation as a measure 
of public policy. Thus slavery is like a tree taken up by the roots — 
the life not wholly out of it, the leaves perhaps yet green — but its 
roots are out of the grouqd, and ix must die. 
2 



10 AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 

The Society over ■which you preside has not only reason to congrat- 
iilate itself that its labors have contributed hirgcly to this great end; 
but that it has also given a historical proof that no evil, however 
mighty, no abuse, however deeply rooted, can resist the power of 
truth and righteousness, clearly uttered and perseveringly witnessed 
to. Every advocate of justice henceforth, however humble he may 
seem to be, will be encouraged by your success to believe that God 
by him will fidfil the prophecy which declares that "He shall smite 
the earth by tlie rod of His mouth, and by the breaih of His lips 
shall He slay the wicked." So that by your fidelity, you have not 
only helped to put out of the land this gigantic evil and sin, but have 
also contributed to destroy every other evil and sin which in all time 
to come shall be brought to an end by the power of truth and justice. 

Very truly and faithfully yours, 

JAMES FKEEMAN CLARKE. 

The President. We hoped to have had the pleasure of seeing 
•with us, upon this occasion, three of the most devoted friends of our 
cause which thet struggle has brought forth ; I mean, Theodore D. 
Weld, Angelina Ghijike Weld, and Sarah Gp.imke. The letter 
which they have jointly sent to us expresses their feelings in regard 
to this celebration. I need not pass any eulogium upon these devoted 
friends; for you all know, who know any thing of the Anti-Slavery 
movement, what they have done for it. 

West Newton, Dec. 1, 1863. 
Beloved Friends : 

The letter of your Committee invites us to be present, either in 
person or by letter, to celebrate with you our Third Decade. In 
place of ourselves, we send a few words of earnest greeting, as our 
proxy. 

The fittest celebration of the past is to gird ourselves anew for the 
present and the future. The crisis that is upon us speaks its own 
word. To us, that word is this : — 

This Conspiracy is Slavery. The fiend that planned it, that ripened 
the plot, and now reeks with its perfidies, perjuries and myriad 
murders, is Slavery — Slavery in arms — the whole of it, and nothing 
else; its body, soul, and spirit; the focus of its life and the furnace 
of its rage ; its mad brain and heart, with all their greeds, plots and 
hates, ablaze with the fires of their own hell — every musolc and 
nerve-fibre on the rack — thought and will strained into spasms, and 
raving in frenzy. By its own act, by God's decree, Slavery's last 
hour has come, if the Nation loill have it so. Up from the whole 
land, from all the earth's ends, the great question conies, million- 
voiced : "Does the Nation know, will the Nutiou do the thing that 



THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 11 

bclonsis to its peace, and to all Iminan weal?" lie that hath ears 
begins to hear the Nation's .solemn voices saying, " We do, and we 
loiU ! " Ten-lble thiwgs in i-ighteoasness, just retribution for our 
partnership in the infinite crime and curse, press up these words to- 
day upon the Nation's lips. We hear in them the voice of God. We 
see, in the blow about to fall, the bolt of God, striking dead, and 
burning up its corpse ; leaving not a hair of the accursed thing to 
taint (he air, or stain the ground, or bow down one free grass blade, 
or t(!ther the tiniest rootlet in the soil. 

Hitherto, Slavery's intense vitality has pervaded its whole body; 
all these life-forces the rebellion has absorbed into itself From all 
the extremities, they have rushed to their centre. True blows struck 
there deal death to slavery, and to all its drugon-brood — aristocracy, 
caste, monopoly, class legislation, exclusive privilege and prerogative, 
all legalized oppression of the weak by the strong, with whatever 
obstructs " Liberty, Efjuality, Fraternity." For this, all oppressed 
peoples now turn their eyes hitherward. 

Who that hates slavery, and h;is clear eyesight, does not see that 
the work of Abolitionists, for this hour, with prayer and pen, with 
voice and trumpet-blast, with men and money, with all the weapons, 
by all means, in all ways, and with the whole soul, is to strike down 
this rebellion? It totters now, and slavery totters with it. See how 
it is struck down in the District of Columbia, Western Virginia, Del- 
aware, Maryland, IMissouri, and in the Cherokee and Choctaw Na- 
tions! See how in Louisiana, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, 
Florida, Arkansas, Texas, Northern Mississippi, and Northern Ala- 
bama, it reels to-day! 

then, God grant us large vision to see, and high wisdom to do; 
help us to lay aside every weight — the chronic queries and criticisms, 
the non-essential ifs and buts that throng (he hour — the multiform 
side issues that so easily beset; and, in His strength, uplift ourselves 
altogether, to gird anew the Nation's arm, that it may bring down 
the final blow! 

Li hope, confidence, deep gratitude, and solemn exultation, faith- 
fully, your fellow-servants, 

THEODORE D. WELD, 
ANGELINA G. WELD, 
SARAH M. GRIMKE. 

The President. The next letter is from our esteemed and sifted 
friend, 0. B. Frothingham, of the city of New York : — 

New York, Nov. 23, 1863. 
My Dear Friend : 

1 have received and gratefully acknowledge (he kind invitation to 
your grand intellectual and moral banquet in Philadelphia on the 3d 
and -ilh days of December. I anticipate unusual duties and cares just 



12 AMERICAN AXTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 

that week, incident to the opening of my church, and sorely fear I 
diall miss the treat; not, however, if I can help it. For simply to 
be there on an occasion so saturated with no^le memories, earnest 
thoughts and pure hopes, so bountiful in sentiment and aspiration, 
would be an era in one's experience. Never was festival so truly a 
festival in the tine old religious sense — a season of joy dedicated to 
the gods. For the spirit of Justice, Truth and Love, the primeval 
Trinity, will itself preside — invisible thousands of the redeemed will 
rise in ranks around the hall — a cloud of witnesses too numerous 
for admission, if, spirits filled any points of space — and the angels, 
too, of the great redeemers, will glorify the house from floor to ceil- 
ing. Only to sit in silence amid such an assembly, and let the tears 
of gratitude flow from one's eyes, would be a sacramental observance; 
and with all that, to hear the speaking, and on all that again to press 
the hands that have wrought at this great task for thirty years, and 
to look into the faces in which so proud a moral triumph is reflected! 
Well, I won't try to say what that would be, but only try to think it 
will be mine to enjoy in actual fruition and in long memory. 

You know, dear Mr. Garrison, that I shall be with you at any 
rate, even though my presence bodily may be here. You know that 
I am always with you in your work and in your prayer. You know 
that I am ever gratefully yours, 

O. B. FROTHINGHAM. 

The President. Here is a letter from the Hon. Owen Lovejoy, 
who expresses the hope of being with us to-day. What Mr. Love- 
joy has done, in his place in the United States House of Representa- 
tives, for a number of years — how he has had to peril his life from 
session to session, in the midst of slaveholding wrath and violence — 
and with what a lion-hearted spirit he has triumphantly met the 
proud oligarchy of the South, represented in that body, you all know. 

Princeton, Illinois, Nov. 22, 1863. 
My Dear Sir: 

•)t * # J have some hope of being able to be present at your meet- 
ing. In the event of my not being able to attend, will you allow me 
to say that I am in ftivor of an act of Congress abolishing slavery 
throughout the entire limits of the United States, and making it a 
penal offence to hold or claim to hold a slave? 

If we have a right to build a Pacific Railroad to promote the geii- 
eral v)elfare, without any specific grant of power in the Constitution, 
how much more have we the right to destroy that which is not only 
opposed to the general welfare, and to the spirit and genius of the 
Constitution, but is in constant and now bloody antagonism to every 
avowed purpose for which that organic hnv was ordained and estab- 
lished? I am aware that the dogma or fiction (for it is nothing 
more) of State sovereignty will be opposed to this legislation. But 



TniRTIETII ANNITEESARY OF THE 13 

to this theory of State sovereignty I oppose the words of the Consti- 
tution itself: "This Constitution, and the laws of the United States 
Mhieh .<hail be made in puisuanoe thereof, shall be the supreme law 
of the land, any thing in the Constitution or laws of any State to the 
contrary notwithstanding." Another mode of reaching the same end 
would be to take a slave into the United States Supreme Couit, and 
see whether that tribunal dare refuse him freedom under the Consti- 
tution. I have never had a doubt that a bench of honest judges 
would liberate a slave if once in Court. I think that was the chief 
motive for the atrocious Drcd Scott decision. The slaveholder dare 
not confront his slave in that tribunal, if it could be half decently 
constituted. I shall therefore be with you in spirit, if not in person. 
I heartily bid you God-speed in your eftbrts to secure obedience to 
the divine command which the fathers traced on the bell, which I 
think still hangs over Independence Hall, in the city where you 
meet : " Proclaim liberty throughout all the land, to all the inhabi- 
tants thereof." 

Yours, for universal freedom, 

OWEN LOYEJOY. 
TVii. Lloyd Garrison. 

The President. The next letter is from one whom we all delight 
to honor for his invaluable and long-continued services in behalf of 
the oppressed, in the Congress of the United States, and out of that 
body — I mean, the Hon. Joshua 11. Giddings, of Ohio. (Applause.) 

Jefferson, Ohio, Nov. 30, 18G3. 
My Dear Garrison : 

I would most gladly unite with the friends of freedom in commem- 
orating the return of our government to the doctrines on which it was 
founded. For half a century, the powers which had been ordained 
to secure liberty were prostituted to the enslavement of mankind ; 
the powers ordained to secure life were prostituted to the destruction 
of human existence ; and our free government was transformed into 
a slaveholding oligarchy. 

Amid the moral and political darkness which then overshadowed 
our land, the voice of humanity was at length faintly heard. Its 
utterance became more and more distinct, until at length the liigh 
and holy truth, that all men hold from the Creator a right to live, 
a right to that liberty which is necessary to protect life, acquire 
knowledge, enjoy happiness, and prepare for heaven, was heard in 
our congressional halls. A quarter of a century has not yet elapsed, 
since the duty of separating our Federal Government and the people 
of the States from all support of slavery was first proclaimed in our 
National Legislature. The policy was so palpably just, so obviously 
in accordance with the Constitution, and constituted such a distinct 
reiteration of the doctrines enunciated by the founders of our institu- 



14 AMEKICAN ANTI-SLATERY SOCIETY. 

tions, that the advocates of slavery have never attempted to meet it 
with argument. Threats, intimidation, slander, violence, war and 
bloodf-hed have constituted the weapons with which tliey have at- 
tempted to stay the tide of Chri.-tian civilization. They have beset 
the pathway of reform with civil war, with rebellion unequalled in 
history. 

During the last three years, our people have raised, armed and 
sent to the field a million and a quarter of the best soldiers who have 
ever fought in the cause of freedom, at an expense of fifteen hundred 
million dollars. In no age, in no clime, have any people made so 
great or such willing sacrifice for liberty; while the nations of Europe 
have stood with folded arms, looking upon this mighty conflict, boast- 
ing that they took no interest in this war between slavery and free- 
dom — that they neither encouraged the one, nor condemned the other. 

Within the last two years, our people have purified themselves 
from slavery and the save trade in the District of Columbia and in 
the Territories ; and the President's Proclamation of Emancipation 
has repudiated the institution in ten sovereign States, while in four 
others slavery lingers only in name. Within that time, three mil- 
lions of degraded bondmen have been legally elevated to the enjoy- 
ment of those rights which the Creator bestowed upon them. Heaven 
itself may w'oll rejoice; and ail good men will thank God, take cour- 
age, and reengage in the great work with increased zeal. 

I regret to say that, from the length of time and the severity of 
my own labors, I have fainted, fallen, and been borne from the field 
of conflict; but as I linger upon the verge of time, I still rest my 
dimmed vision upon the battle as it yet rages, and my last prayer 
shall be for the heroes of justice and liberty. 

I pray you to express to the members of your Society the assur- 
ance of my affectionate regard. 

Very faithfully, your friend, 

JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS. 

The President. The next letter is from one who entered into the 
anti-slavery field at an earlier period than almost any of us. Long 
before my own mind was turned to this subject, he had fully compre- 
hended it, and bravely and faithfully borne an uncompromising testi- 
mony for the abo.ition of slavery. His name deserves to be held in 
lasting remembrance. I allude to Rev. John Rankin, of Ohio. 

Ripley, Ohio, Kov. 19, 1863. 
Mr. Gaurison : 

Dear Sir, — Your invitation to attend the Thirtieth Anniversary 
of the American Anti-Slavery Society has been received. I regret 
that I am not in circumstances that will enable mc to be present at 
your meeting. You and I have ever been united on the subject of 



TUIRTIETU ANNIVEUSARY OF THE 15 

• 

immediate emancipation, while we have widely differed in other re- 
f;pcctt<. I foci that my labors must soon close. I am now in the 
scvenly-first year of my age, and, of course, must soon go the way of 
all past generations. From my boyhood to tlio present time, 1 have 
opposed the abominable system of American slavery. For the liber- 
ation of the shives T have labored long, and suffered much reproach 
and persecution ; but I regret none of the sacrifices I have made for 
the hapless millions that have been bought and sold as if beasts of 
the field, and deprived of all that makes existence desirable. Nearly 
forty years have passed away since I began to warn this nation of the 
ruin that would result from (his horrible system of oppression, but 
now the day of blood has come. The Son of God has come with his 
rod of iron, and dashed those slaveholding governments in pieces as 
a potter's vessel is broken, and has made the General Government 
tremble on its foundation. " True and righteous are thy judgments, 
O Lord ! " 

I greatly rejoice in the President's Proclamation. No other man 
ever had the privilege of making a proclamation so magnificent. It 
is to lift more than three millions of people from the deepest degra- 
dation and misery to dignified life and station as rational beings. 
And although it is not broad enough to cover the whole field of op- 
pression, yet it is the fiat that will end the system. He that is higher 
than the heavens has ordained it, and our brave soldiers in the field 
arc the armies of the living God to enforce it. Let us thank God 
and take courage; and not relax our efforts while there is a slave in 
the land. 

JOHN PtANKIN. 

The President. Wchave still a large number of letters that you 
would be pleased to hear, some of which will be read at other ses- 
sions, as time may allow. The only additional one that will now be 
submitted is from Hon. 0. W. Alrke, of Massachusetts, v/ho in the 
Legislature of that State has done important service to our cause. 

Marlboro', Nov. 12, 1863. 
Mr. Garrison : 

Dear Sir, — Your circular of the l'2th inst. has been received. I 
deem it a high honor to be thought worthy of an invitation to the 
meeting in the city of Philadelphia, to commemorate the Thirtieth 
Anniversary of the American Anti-Slavery Society ; but circum- 
stances will, I fear, prevent my attending it. 

In the year 1880 or 1831, whilst a student in Brown University, 
I chanced to read some sheets printed by yourself in Boston. The 
sheets were not large, nor the paper very fine; but suffice it to say, 
they contained facts that settled the question of emancipation with 
me. Since that hour, I have been an unwavering auti-slavcry man; 



16 AMERICAN ANTI-SLATEEY SOCIETY. 

and if I have rlone any good service in the glorious cause of emanci- 
pation, let God and William Lloyd Garkison be thanked. 

Very truly, yours, 

0. W. ALBEE. 

Henry C. Wright offered the following resolutions : — 

Resolved, That the voice of the people is heard through petitions 
to Congress; and this Convention earnestly recommend that this 
voice be raised in petitions for an amendment of the Constitution, 
declaring that slavery shall be for ever prohibited within the limits of 
the United States. 

Resolved, That a committee of five be appointed to prepai'c such 
a petition, and procure the signature of every member of this Con- 
vention to the same before its final adjournment. 

Mr. Wright stated that this resolution had been suggested to him 
by one of the leading members of the United States Senate, who 
would probably, at an early day, introduce the subject in his place in 
that body. 

The resolutions were referred to the Business Committee. 

SPEECH OF REV. WM. H. FURNESS. 

Mr. President : — 

I am reminded of the first time that I had the honor of standing 
upon the anti-slavery platform with you. You may not remember 
it ; but it was upon the occasion when our friends, Frederick Doug- 
lass and Samuel Ward, so magnificently vindicated the ability of 
the black man. Then you were surrounded in the gallery behind 
you by Isaiah Rynders and his crew. If you had been told then, 
sir, that some few years afterwards you would be standing upon an 
anti-slavery platform with a file of black soldiers behind you, what 
would have been your explanation of the prophecy ? That the blacks 
had risen in insurrection, and that you were protected by your 
friends. 

I am not in form a member of the National Anti-Slavery Society. 
The Society had not long existed before it communicated to me the 
information that I was already the President of an Abolition Society 
called a Christian Church ; and I have felt myself bound to keep in 
my own sphere, and to try and bring my little Abolition Society upon 
the true platform ; and that is the reason why I never officially 
belonged to the American Auti-Slavcry Society. 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 17 

Again, I feel very reluctant to claim to be an Abolitionist, because 
I think it to be a very high pretension for a man to make. I am 
perfectly willing to bear the obloquy of the name ; but it looks like 
pride, and may imply a want of self-knowledge, for a man to claim 
with confidence that he is a genuine, thorough-going Garrisonian 
Abolitionist Under these circumstances, I esteem myself honored, 
inasmuch as 1 have been invited to read to you the " Declaration of 
Sentiments " upon which this Society was founded ; a Declaration 
made in this city thirty years ago, and second only in time to the 
Declaration of 1776. 

DECLARATION OF SENTIMENTS. 

The Convention assembled in the city of Philadelphia, to organize 
a National Anti-Slavery Society, promptly seize the opportunity to 
promulgate the following DECLAKATION OF SENTIMENTS, 
as cherished by them in relation to the enslavement of one sixth 
portion of the American people. 

More than fifty-seven years have elapsed since a baud of patriots 
convened in this place, to devise measures for the deliverance of this 
country from a foreign yoke. The corner-stone upon which they 
founded the Temple of Freedom was broadly this — "that all men 
are created equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with cer- 
tain inalienable rights ; that among these are life, LIBERTY, and 
the pursuit of happiness." At the sound of their trumpet-call, three 
millions of people rose up as from the sleep of death, and rushed to the 
strife of blood ; deeming it more glorious to die instantly as free- 
men, than desirable to live one hour as slaves. They were few in 
number — poor in resources ; but the honest conviction that Truth, 
Justice and Right were on their side made them invincible. 

We have met together for the achievement of an enterprise, with- 
out which that of our fathers is incomplete ; and which, for its mag- 
nitude, solemnity, and probable results upon the destiny of the world, 
as far transcends theirs as moral truth does physical force. 

In purity of motive, in earnestness of zeal, in decision of purpose, 
in intrepidity of action, in steadfastness of faith, in sincerity of spirit, 
we would not be inferior to them. 

Their principles led thorn to wage war against their oppressors, 
and to spill human blood like water in order to be free. Ours forbid 
the doing of evil that good may come, and lead us to reject, and to 
entreat the oppressed to reject, the use of all carnal weapons for de- 
liverance from bondage; relying solely upon those which are spirit- 
ual, and mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. 

Their measures were physical resistance — the marshalling in 
arms — the hostile array — the mortal encounter. Ours shall be 
such only as the opposition of moral purity to moral corruptiou — 
3 



18 THIRTIETH ANNIA^ERSARY OF THE 

the destruction of error by the potency of truth — the overthrow of 
prejudice by the power of love — and the abolition of Slavery by the 
spirit of repentance. 

Their grievances, great as they were, were trifling in comparison 
with the wrongs and sufferings of those for whom we plead. Our 
fathers were never slaves — never bought and sold like cattle — never 
shut out from the light of knowledge and religion — never subjected 
to the lash of brutal taskmasters. 

But those for whose emancipation we are striving — constituting, 
at the present time, at least one sixth part of our countrymen — are 
recognized by the law, and treated by their fellow-beings, as market- 
able commodities, as goods and chattels, as brute beasts; ai'e plun- 
dered daily of the fruits of their toil without redress ; really enjoy 
no constitutional nor legal protection from licentious and murderous 
outrages upon their persons; are ruthlessly torn asunder — the tender 
babe from the arms of its frantic mother — the heart-broken wife from 
her weeping husband — at the caprice or pleasure of irresponsible 
tyrants. For the crime of having a dark complexion, they suffer the 
pangs of hunger, the infliction of stripes, and the ignominy of brutal 
servitude. They are kept in heathenish darkness by laws expressly 
enacted to make their instruction a criminal offence. 

These are the prominent circumstances in the condition of more 
than two millions of our people, the proof of which may be found 
in thousands of indisputable facts, and in the laws of the slavehold- 
ing States. 

Hence we maintain — that in view of the civil and religious privi- 
leges of this nation, the guilt of its oppression is unequalled by any 
other on the face of the earth ; and, therefore, 

That it is bound to repent instantly, to undo the heavy burden, to 
break every yoke, and to let the oppressed go free. 

We further maintain — that no man has a right to enslave or im- 
brute his brother — to hold or acknowledge him, for one moment, as 
a piece of merchandize — to keep back his hire by fraud — or to bru- 
talize his mind by denying him the means of intellectual, social and 
moral improvement. 

The right to enjoy liberty is inalienable. To invade it is to usurp 
the prerogative of Jehovah. Every man has a right to his own 
body — to the products of his own labor — to the pi'otection of law — 
and to the common advantages of society. It is piracy to buy or 
steal a native African, and subject him to servitude. Surely the sin 
is as great to enslave an American as an African. 

Therefore we believe and affirm — That there is no difference, in 
principle, between the African slave trade and American Slavery : 

That every American citizen, who retains a human being in invol- 
untary bondage as his property, is, accorduig to Scripture, (Ex. 21 : 

16,) a MAN-STEALER : 

That the slaves ought instantly to be set free, and brought under 
the protection of the law : 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 19 

That if they had lived from the time of Pharaoh down to the 
present period, and had been entailed through successive generations, 
their right to be free could never have been alienated, but their 
claims would have constantly risen in solemnity : 

That all those laws which are now in force, admitting the right of 
Slavery, are therefoi'e, before God, utterly null and void; being an 
audacious usurpation of the Divine prerogative, a daring infringement 
on the law of nature, a base overthrow of the very foundations of 
the social compact, a complete extinction of all the relations, endear- 
ments, and obligations of mankind, and a presumptuous transgression 
of all the holy commandments — and that, therefore, they ought in- 
stantly to be abrogated. 

We further believe and affirm — that all persons of color who 
possess the qualifications which are demanded of others, ought to be 
admitted forthwith to the enjoyment of the same privileges, and the 
exercise of the same prerogatives, as others; and that the paths of 
preferment, of wealth, and of intelligence, should be opened as 
widely to them as to persons of a white complexion. 

We maintain that no compensation should be given to the planters 
emancipating their slaves ; 

Because it would be a surrender of the great fundamental princi- 
ple, that man cannot hold property in man ; 

Because Slavery is a crime, and therefore is not an article 
TO BE sold; 

Because the holders of slaves are not the just proprietors of what 
they claim ; freeing the slaves is not depriving them of property, but 
restoring it to its rightful owners ; it is not wronging the master, but 
righting the slave — restoring him to himself; 

Because immediate and general emancipation would only destroy 
nominal, not real property ; it would not amputate a limb, or break 
a bone of the slaves, but, by infusing motives into their breasts, would 
make them doubly valuable to the masters as free laborers ; and 

Because, if compensation is to be given at all, it should be given 
to the outraged and guiltless slaves, and not to those who have plun- 
dered and abused them. 

We regard as delusive, cruel and dangerous, any scheme of expa- 
triation which pretends to aid, either directly or indirectly, in the 
emancipation of the slaves, or to be a substitute for the immediate 
and total abolition of Slavery. 

We fully and unanimously recognize the sovereignty of each State 
to legislate exclusively on the subject of the Slavery which is tole- 
rated within its limits ; we concede that Congress, under the present 
national compact, has no right to interfere with any of the Slave 
States, in relation to this momentous subject : 

But we maintain that Congress has a right, and is solemnly bound, 
to suppress the domestic slave trade between the several States, and 
to abolish Slavery in those portions of our territory which the Con- 
stitution has placed under its exclusive jurisdiction. 



20 THIRTIETH ANNIYERSARY OF THS 

We also maintain that there are, at the present time, the highest 
obligations resting upon the people of the Free States to remove 
Slavery by moral and political action, as prescribed in the Constitu- 
tion of the United States. They are now living under a pledge of 
their tremendous physical force to fasten the galling fetters of 
tyranny upon the limbs of millions in the Southern States; they are 
liable to be called at any moment to suppress a general insurrection 
of the slaves ; they authorize the slave-owner to vote on three fifths 
of his slaves as property, and thus enable him to perpetuate his op- 
pression ; they support a standing army at the South for its protec- 
tion ; and they seize the slave who has escaped into their territories, 
and send him back to be tortured by an enraged master or a brutal 
driver. This relation to Slavery is criminal, and full of danger : it 

MUST BE BROKEN UP. 

These are our views and principles — these our designs and meas- 
ures. With entire confidence in the overruling justice of God, we 
plant ourselves upon the Declaration of Independence and the 
truths of divine revelation as upon the Everlasting Rock. 

We shall organize Anti-Slavery Societies, if possible, in every 
city, town and village in our land. 

We shall send forth agents to lift up the voice of remonstrance, of 
warning, of entreaty and rebuke. 

We shall circulate, unsparingly and extensively, Anti-Slavery 
tracts arid periodicals. 

We shall enlist the pulpit and the press in the cause of the suffer- 
ing and the dumb. 

We shall aim at a purification of the churches from all participa- 
tion in the guilt of Slavery. 

We shall encourage the labor of freemen rather than that of 
slaves, by giving a preference to their productions : and 

We shall spare no exertions nor means to bring the whole nation 
to speedy repentance. 

Our trust for victory is solely in God. We may be personally 
defeated, but our principles never. Truth, Justice, Reason, Hu- 
manity, must and will gloriously triumph. Already a host is coming 
up to the help of the Lord against the mighty, and the prospect 
before us is full of encouragement. 

Submitting this DECIiARATION to the candid examination of 
the people of this country, and of the friends of Liberty throughout 
the world, we hereby affix our signatures to it ; pledging ourselves 
that, under the guidance and by the help of Almighty God, we will 
do all that in us lies, consistently with this Declaration of our prin- 
ciples, to overthrow the most execrable system of Slavery that has 
ever been witnessed upon earth — to deliver our land from its dead- 
liest curse — to wipe out the foulest stain which rests upon our 
national escutcheon — and to secure to the colored population of the 
United States all the rights and privileges which belong to them as 
men and as Americans — come what may to our persons, our inter- 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 21 

ests, or our reputation — ■whether we live to witness the triumph of 
Liberty, Justice and Humanity, or perish untimely as martyrs in 
this great, benevolent and holy cause. 

Done at Philadelphia, the 6th day of December, A. D. 1833. 

I am informed that of the sixty persons and upwards, who appended 
their names to this Declaration, only fifteen have died, when the an- 
ticipation here expressed has been realized. The large body of the 
signers " live to witness the triumph of liberty, justice and humanity." 

You all know what have been the weapons of our friends in the 
great war in which they have been engaged. If our country had 
responded to these sentiments thirty years ago, as they responded to 
the tidings of the attack upon Port Sumter, slavery would have been 
utterly abolished by this time, without the shedding of a single drop 
of blood. But there is a homely proverb, that it is in vain to talk 
about what might have been, or what should have been. Blood is 
running like water, and the consolation and reward of our friends is, 
that when the South broke out in brutal assault upon the life of the 
nation, that the nation was so well prepared for the hour was due in 
great part to the fidelity with which they have redeemed the pledges 
they gave in this Declaration, in forming Anti-Slavery Societies 
throughout all the North, and in sending every where anti-slavery 
information. 

I confess there are very strong points of resemblance between the 
Abolitionists of the North and the conspirators of the South. Our 
friends at the North, thirty years ago, undertook to fire the Northern 
heart, insensible to the fact that they were in danger of firing the 
Southern heart at the same time. So, also, a few years ago, the 
leading conspirators at the South undertook to fire the Southern 
heart, never dreaming what a tremendous fire they were going to 
kindle in the Northern heart. So that, in this respect, the Aboli- 
tionists of the North and the Fire-eaters of the South resembled 
each other; with this diiference — that the Abolitionists undertook to 
kindle the Northern heart with fire from heaven; the Fire-eaters 
undertook to kindle the Southern heart with fire from — the other 
place. (Applause.) 

SPEECH OF WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 

On the Fourth of July, 1776, our fathers put their names to the 
Declaration of American Independence. They testified before the 



22 THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 

world, in that manner, to their acceptance of certain " self-evident 
truths" contained in that Declaration; and, therefore, that there could 
be no violation of them without guilt. Now, it is one thing to speak 
the word of liberty, but a very different thing to keep it. Our 
fathers proclaimed the truth. Did they adhere to it? Did they 
proceed to carry out honestly and impartially their own Heaven- 
attested sentiments ? No ; they were content to leave in bondage, as 
a matter of compromise, 600,000 slaves, who have since multiplied 
by natural generation to 4,000,000. They did not dare wholly to 
trust in God ; and hence they were left to enter into a covenant with 
slaveholding, which in 1860 naturally broke out in bloody rebellion. 

Thirty years ago, the Declaration to which you have just listened 
was issued by a small body assembled in this city, and the signatures 
of the members present were appended to the instrument. The 
result was, the immediate formation of the American Anti-Slavery 
Society, which adopted the Declaration as the basis upon which all 
its action should rest. Has the Society been true to its principles 
and sentiments? I feel I can truly say that it has been faithful and 
uncompromising from the beginning till now ; that we have not 
yielded one jot or tittle of any of our demands; that in all trials, in 
all discouragements, in the hottest persecution, we have been faithful 
to our cause, and to the victims whose advocates we profess to be. 

Is there any thing in this Declaration that any honest man can 
object to? Is there any thing in it opposed to the principles of 
justice, mercy, or brotherly love? How has it come to pass, then, 
that the proclamation of those sentiments has filled the land, for a 
whole generation, with violence and persecution ? How is it that, 
during all that time, the Abolitionists have been held up as fanatics, 
madmen and incendiaries, who ought not to be tolerated in the utter- 
ance of their thoughts? How has the nation been torn and tor- 
mented by this anti-slavery agitation ! Yet we enunciated no new 
truths, advanced no strange ideas, made no unreasonable demands. 
What has just been read to us has been reiterated in substance from 
age to age, ever since tyranny commenced its reign upon earth. It 
is a collection of the merest truisms; that man is man, and not a 
beast ; that there is an everlasting distinction between a mere animal 
and an immortal soul ; that the laborer should have his just reward ; 
that all should be protected by equal laws ; and that oppression 
should not be tolerated in any part of our land or world. We have 
been called " fanatics and incendiaries " for uttering truths like these. 



AMERICAN ANXI-isLAVKKY SOCIETY. 23 

They who have opposed us, — blindly it may be in many instances, 
wickedly in others, — have been guilty of fanaticism and incendia- 
rism. Justice was upon our side ; reason and mercy were with us ; 
and the God of all flesh nerved our spirits to the conflict. 

Allow me to take this opportunity to say, that there is one inter- 
polation in the Declaration of Sentiments which I did not like at the 
time, and which I have never liked since. An esteemed friend in the 
Convention thought it would take off the edge, a little, of one of 
Ihe allegations, if we would verify it by a reference to Scripture. 
As originally written, it stood thus : — 

"That every American citizen, who retains a human being in in- 
voluntary bondage as his property, is a man-stealer." 

But this was amended so as to read : — 

" That every American citizen, who retains a human being in in- 
voluntary bondage as his property, is (according to Scripture, Exodus 
21 : 16) a man-stealer." 

That weakens instead of strengthening it. It raises a Biblical 
question. It makes the rights of man depend upon a text. Now, it 
matters not what the Bible may say, so far as these rights are con- 
cerned. They never originated in any parchment, are not dependent 
upon any parchment, but are in the nature of man himself, written 
upon the human faculties and powers by the finger of God. It 
matters not, though all the books in the universe, claiming to be 
never so sacred and holy, should declare that man has not a natural 
and an inalienable right to himself. Those books would only deserve 
to be given to the consuming fire. (Applause.) We do not base this 
cause upon any book. We base it upon man, upon God in man ; 
and it will stand invulnerable, whether we can prove or not, by mere 
texts of Scripture, that a man has a right to his own body and his 
own soul. 

I believe that if the Bible denounces any one sin more than 
another, it denounces the sin of oppression ; if it represents God as 
being particularly incensed in his moral nature, it is in view of the 
treatment of the poor, and the needy, and the outcast. " Wash you; 
make you clean ; put away the evil of your doings from before mine 
eyes. Cease to do evil, learn to do well; seek judgment; relieve 
the oppressed ; undo the heavy burden; break every yoke, and let 
the oppressed go free." 

I have never refrained from making use of the Bible us a mighty 



24 THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 

weapon to batter clown slavery ; but not to settle the question of the 
right or wrong of slavery by the Bible, or any other book. Slavery 
is a self-evident wrong. 

It will be seen from this Declaration that, from the beginning, as 
an association, we pledged ourselves to the country that our measures 
should be entirely peaceful, our appeals to the reason and consciences 
of men ; that we should deal in argument and entreaty, in warning 
and rebuke, in exposing the iniquity and danger of slavery, and in 
showing the blessings of liberty. We never contemplated asking of 
Congress the exercise of any unconstitutional power. We never at- 
tempted to stir up a slave insurrection, nor to do any thing more than 
this — to reason and remonstrate with the holders of slaves, and to 
leave it to their consciences to break the yoke, and set their victims 
free. Yet, had we been the vilest of the vile ; had we been a band 
of incendiaries and assassins, whose only purpose was to " cry Havoc, 
and let slip the dogs of war," and have chaos come again ; we could 
not have aroused against us the indignant opposition of this nation 
more thoroughly or more effectively than it has been during our long 
protracted struggle. 

But " Wisdom is justified of her children," and the nation is get- 
ting to be now clothed, and sitting in its right mind. The Anti- 
Slavery cause is, at last, receiving a fair and honest verdict ; and the 
approving judgment of posterity is sure. It will be admitted, in 
the future, that the Abolitionists only asked what was self-evidently 
just and reasonable, humane and Christian ; and that the imputations 
cast upon them were vile and wicked, and made for a most villanous 
purpose. 

How strange it always seems, in looking back through the course 
of history, and seeing the various struggles along the pathway of time 
to aid and bless the human race, that there should have existed any 
hostility to those reforms ! What did the prophets say that was not 
worthy of all acceptation? Yet, how were they subjected to every 
form of persecution ! Go back to the days of Jesus. Is it not now 
a matter of universal astonishment that any fault should have been 
found with him who went about doing good, who was harmless and 
undefiled, who was willing to lay down his life for his enemies? 
How could his brave and heroic apostles, going forth to save and bless 
their fellow-men, have been stigmatized as " pestilent and seditious 
fellows, seeking to turn the world upside down," and as " the filth of 
the earth and the offscouring of all things " ? And is it not amazing 



THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 25 

when we come down to Wickliffe and Luther, to George Fox and 
William Penn, to Rogkr Williams and John Wesley, who stood 
forth as the champions of religious liberty, that the people of their 
generation should have seen in them any thing evil? 

Will it not be so, in the judgment of posterity, in regard to the 
Anti-Slavery struggle? While I will not say that the Abolitionists 
have committed no errors, nor that they might not have done their 
work in some respects better, I believe that there never was a body 
of reformers better kept in spirit, or in a sound understanding as to 
the best way of doing their work, than the Abolitionists in their 
efforts for the overthrow of slavery. 

Signers of the Declaration of Sentiments ! when we put our names 
to that instrument, how little did we understand the nature and power 
of slavery, or the actual condition of our country under its corrupting 
influence ! How little we comprehended the trials through which 
we should be called to pass ! We knew that the nation was slumber- 
ing, and that trumpet voices were needed to arouse it from its sleep 
of death; but did we not go to our own familiar friends, to kind 
neighbors and honored fellow-citizens, and expect to obtain their ap- 
proval and cooperation? Did we not go to our cherished religious 
denomination, or to our political party, and expect, as soon as our 
appeals were made, it would give a patriotic or Christian response ? 
How were we disappointed in every direction ! How, instead of 
meeting with sympathy and encouragement, we had to face the frowns 
even of those who had formerly been our near and dear acquaintances! 
We have been " in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by 
our own countrymen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, 
in perils among false brethren " ; buffeted, mobbed and outlawed ; in 
some instances, a price has been set upon our heads ; we have been 
regarded as those who were unfit to live. Yet we have ever tried to 
approve ourselves and our sacred cause " in much patience, in afflic- 
tions, in necessities, in distresses, in tumults, in labors, in watchings, 
in fastings ; by pureness, by knowledge, by suffering, by kindness, by 
love unfeigned, by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the 
armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, by honor 
and dishonor, by evil report and good report." And may we not, 
without vaunting, ask, "Where is the wise? where is the scribe? 
where is the disputer of this world ? Hath not God made foolish the 
wisdom of this world ? " 

But thanks to God that we were early called to this great cause ! 
i 



26 AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERT SOCIETY. 

To Him be all the glory. That a most xvonclerful work has been 
achieved is now admitted even b_y our enemies. We might have 
been as multitudinous as the sands on the sea shore, as the stars in 
the midnight sky ; yet, had we been in the wrong, we should 
have been defeated, and ground to powder. We were few, poor, 
uninfluential, obscure; and yet a mighty work has been performed. 
Is it of the Abolitionists? No; it is of God. It is because truth 
is mighty, and no weapon that has ever been or ever can be fashioned, 
can prosper against it. It is because, in a righteous moTement, "one 
shall chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight." It is 
because "ever the right comes uppermost, and ever is justice done." 
We were told, all along, that if our principles should be reduced 
to practice, and our measures carried out, there would be the most 
terrible consequences both to the master and to the slave; that soci- 
ety would be overturned, and every part of the South red with blood 
and conflao-ration. What has been the result? The work of eman- 
cipation is going on, not in a peaceful state of society, but in the 
midst of civil war, the worst time in which to try such an experi- 

nient civil war upon a colossal scale. Yet as the slaves emerge 

from the house of bondage, how docile and peaceable is their con- 
duct! They are behaving not only as well as we said they would, 
but transcending even our anticipations and prophecies. (Applause.) 
Wherever they have been tried, whether merely in digging ditches, 
trenches and rifle pits, or whether "armed and equipped as the law 
directs for military duty," they have discharged their responsibilities 
in the most faithful manner. In my judgment, it stamps them as a 
remarkable people; so remarkable, that I really have in my mind 
great doubts whether any other people upon the face of the earth 
could go through the same sufierings and degradation, and come out 
with so much credit to themselves. (Applause.) 

Danofcr in giving men justice? Danger in protecting cradles 
from the kidnapper? Danger in allowing the husband and wife to 
be safe together? Danger in paying the laborer honestly for his 
work? How insane the nation has been! Slavery demonizes those 
whom it possesses. It calls good evil, and evil good ; it puts light 
for darkness, and darkness for light. They who are possessed by it 
are rendered lunatics. There never was a man yet who could reason 
sanely in favor of slavery. It is not practicable to frame a sound 
argument in favor of wrong-doing. God does not allow that to be 
possible. If Gabriel himself should try it, he would only be morally 
foolish in proportion to his intellectual powers. 



THIRTIETH ANNIVERSART OF THE 27 

By the help of God wc have continued to this day ; and we have 
great reason to be thankful. But our work as Abolitionists is not 
yet done. The question is doubtless in your minds, — Is this the 
time, or will the next annual meeting of the American Anti-Slavery 
Society be the time, for dissolving our association? That remains to 
be seen. I do hope in God that this coming session of Congress will 
enable us, in 3Iay next, to dissolve the American Anti-Slavery Soci- 
ety. (Applause.) If that body will only abolish slavery, I pledge 
the country that there shall be no more anti-slavery agitation. As 
everybody seems to desire to get rid of this kind of agitation, the 
shortest method is to abolish slavery, which is the sole cause of the 
agitation. (Renewed applause.) 

Bat if, on coming together next May, slavery shall not have been 
abolished, then our work will not have been completed ; and we are 
pledged by the Declaration, and by our relations to God and to these 
in bonds, not to give up until every slave in the land is set free. 
Then our anti-slavery societies will, in the nature of things, termi- 
nate. We are organized to abolish slavery ; when slavery is abol- 
ished, of course our mission ends, in that particular. But our work 
for humanity will not end. We shall put forth strenuous efforts to 
give light and knowledge to the emancipated, and to make their free- 
dom a blessed boon to themselves and the republic. 

How many times, in anti-slavery meetings, have I read, — so de- 
scriptive of the imperative duty and the cheering results of emanci- 
pation, — the 58th chapter of Isaiah, in which God expresses his ab- 
horrence of a sham fast, and announces the true fast ! It is not to 
bow down the head as a bulrush, nor to put on sackcloth and ashes, 
but to undo the heav}' burdens, break ever}' yoke, and let the op- 
pressed go free. How many times have I read the promises con- 
nected with obedience to this command! Now we are in the midst 
of the breaking of yokes, and we are to see whether God will be true 
as to the promised results of emancipation. I aver that those 
promises are being fulfilled literally, and in the most remarkable 
manner. First — "Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, 
and thy darkness shall be as the noon-day."' No cutting of throats; 
no firing of plantations; but the substitution of light for darknes.«. 
Now, what do we see? Following close upon the army, almost in 
the midst of shot and shell and Greek fire, the way being opened, we 
have an army of missionaries and teachers going down to the South, 
to scatter light among those who have been so long sitting in dark- 



28 AMERICAN ANTI-Sr.AVERY SOCIETY. 

ness, and in the region and shadow of death. Most speedy and mar- 
vellous fulfilment of the promise ! 

Next — "Then shall thy health spring forth speedily." Do you 
suppose there is not to be a great improvement in their physical con- 
dition when these imbruted millions are snatched away from the 
slave-driver's lash? But look at this promise from another point of 
view. You know that the rebels congratulated themselves upon the 
thinning out of our forces at New Orleans and at Vicksburg by 
" Yellow Jack," as they call the yellow fever. Yet the result has 
been that, since " the Yankees " have gone down there, with Gen. 
BuxLEB and Gen. Grant to lead them, there has been no Yellow Jack ! 
Liberty has gone into sanitary measures, and the fever has disap- 
peared. 

Finally — "Then shalt thou call, and I will answer; thou shalt 
cry, and I will say, Here I am. Thou shalt be like a watered 
garden whose waters fail not; and they that shall be of thee shall build 
the old waste places ; thou shalt be called. The repairer of the 
breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in ; for the mouth of the Lord 
of hosts hath spoken it." It is only a question of time, — and time 
not far distant, — for all these promises to be literally fulfilled. The 
highest justice is the path of safety, and the best political economy. 

The meeting adjourned to 3, P. M. 

FIEST DAY — Afternoon Session. 

J. M. McKiM called attention to the fact that upon the platform 
was a veritable slave Auction-Block, caj^ured from the Alexandria 
slave-prison. 

The President. The first letter to be read this afternoon is from 
Hon. B. Gratz Brown, of Missouri, who, for a number of years, has 
taken his life in his hands, and been an uncompromising advocate of 
the abolition of slavery in that State. He has been hated, proscribed, 
ostracised. Who ever dreamed that Missouri would eventually ele- 
vate him, a radical, thorough-going Abolitionist, to the Senate of the 
United States ? (Applause.) 

St. Louis, Nov. 21, 1863. 
My Dear Sir: 

Your very kind note of the 12th inst. was received some days 
since, and would have been responded to earlier, and more at length, 



THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 29 

but for a sad domestic bereavement that has very much prostrated 
me. It will be neeessar}' for me to be in Washington city two or 
three days before the session begins, but I will endeavor to take Phil- 
adelphia in my route, and be present with you for a brief period, if 
it be possible. So far as my feeling is concerned, I can assure you 
that I appreciate, more than most persons so far away, the great in- 
fluence of the Anti-Slavery Society in arousing this nation to a sense 
of the sin of slavery that was bending it beneath the yoke, and in 
confirming our people in the resolution to do away with it at every 
hazard. God in his great Providence seems to have shaped this 
Revolution to carry forward that resolve, sharply by the edge of the 
sword ; but more potently and enduringly by the vast augmentation 
of moral power and the deep stirring of national instincts which have 
been called forth by the struggle. For our own State of Missouri, 
I believe I may now say that the work of deliverance is well-nigh 
done — would have been done long since but for the interposition of 
federal influence, civil and military, to sustain slavery and the slave 
dynasty. But even these things cannot long be — the end of all 
sham doing is at hand, and, in the long hereafter, Missouri, be 
assured, will sternly keep her faith with freedom. 

I remain. Sir, very truly, yours, 

B. GRATZ BROWN. 
Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Boston, Mass. 

The President. The next letter is from another Senator of the 
United States, whose name will be his own highest eulogy — Charles 
Sumner, of Massachusetts. (Applause.) 

Boston, 1st December, 1863. 
My Dear Sir: 

I shall not be able to take part in the proceedings to which you 
kindly invite me; but wherever I may be, I shall unite in your 
thanksgivings that God has already allowed so much of the good work 
to be accomplished, and by visible assurances enabled us to see clearly 
that slavery will soon be at an end. 

It is sad to think that this infinite good is reached only through 
the fiery processes of war — so contrary to all your desires and to all 
mine. But we have not been choosers. The alternative has not 
been ours. To save the Republic — to save civilization — to save 
our homes from degradation — to save ourselves from participation 
in unutterable crime and baseness — it has been necessary to rally 
the country against a rebellion, whose single object is the exaltation 
of slavery. Never before in history was there a war so necessary 
and just as that which we are compelled to wage, and never before 
was there a war which promised such transcendant results. 

It is only when the rebellion is seen in its true light, as slavery in 
arms, seeking dominion and recognition — at home and abroad — • 



30 AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVEUY SOCIETf. 

that we can find the true measure of our duties. Of course, every 
concession to the rebellion — all parley with it — is a voluntary 
assumption of its guilt. 

You and your associates have stood firm for many years. Such 
pious fidelity must have its revvard in an approving conscience ; but it 
cannot be forgotten hereafter on earth or in heaven. 

And may Uod continue to bless the good cause, and to bless you, 
who have labored so nobly! 

Believe me, my dear Sir, with much regard, very faithfully yours, " 

CHARLES SUMNEll. 
Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Esq. 

The President. The last letter to be read this afternoon is from 
one of the signers of the Declaration, Simeon S. Jocelyn, now of 
New York. I became acquainted with him almost as soon as I 
entered into the Anti-Slavery cause, and found him one of its warm- 
est and truest friends. He has labored from that hour to the present 
unceasingly in its behalf 1 found him preaching to a small congre- 
gation of colored people in New Haven ; his sympathies having been 
drawn out at a very early period towards that class of people in our 
land. 

New York, Dec. 2, 1863. 
Wm. Lloyd Garrison : 

Dear Sir, — Your invitation to me to be present at the Third 
Decade of the American Anti-Slavery Society was duly received, for 
which please receive my thanks. 

I have hoped to be present on the occasion so deeply interesting 
to those of us who, thirty years ago, under circumstances of great 
solemnity, adopted the memorable Declaration of Sentiments and 
Purposes, (drawn up by your own hand,) and consecrated ourselves 
to the work of securing, under Divine Providence, the liberty of the 
millions of our colored brethren in this land under the most terrible 
bondage known upon earth. 

I find it impossible for me to be present on the first day of the 
convocation, and at this late hour, I can but feebly hope that I may 
be with you on Friday, such is the pressure of duty here this week 
connected with the cause among the freedmen at many points. 

May the season be to all one of precious remembrances, devout 
thanksgiving, and the most earnest renewal of purpose and effort for 
the complete extirpation of slavery, and thereby the overthrow of 
the rebellion, the salvation of the country, and the relief, instruction 
and perpetual elevation and blessing of the millions rushing from 
the house of bondage, now opened by the God of the oppressed, who 
has " made bare His arm " for their deliverance ! 

I have the utmost confidence that the decree of freedom for three 



THIRTIETH ANNIVERSAKY OF TUE 31 

millions of the enslaved in the rebel States, by President Lincoln, 
Avill never bo revoked, but that the proclamation of liberty "to all 
the inhabitants of the land " is early in order. J3ut the hydra-headed 
monster will struggle to the death; and the object coiifem[)lated by 
the meeting and the Society, to move the whole people, and through 
them the government, to the issue, together with every possible labor 
of all the friends of God and humanity, will all be demanded. 
With judgments and repentance, the desired results will be attained. 
JJut, with gratitude, courage and joy, let us still " press the battle 
to the gate." May the Divine favor attend your deliberations, and 
crown the doings of the Convention with untold blessings upon the 
oppressed and their benefactors ! 

Truly, yours, S. S. JOCELYN. 

SPEECH OF J. MILLER McKIM. 

I comply cheerfully with your request, Mr. Chairman, though the 
task it assigns me is not in all respects an easy one. To look back 
upon the origin of this Society, and run the eye down its course to 
the present time, and then submit the reminiscences suggested, and 
to do it all in the space of a single short speech, is a task requiring 
powers of condensation beyond my pretensions. 

There is another difficulty about it. To give an account of a 
movement with which one's own personal history — at least in his 
own mind — is inseparably identified, without violating one of the 
first rules of good taste in a speaker, demands a degree of phraseo- 
logical skill which but few possess. The word /is perhaps the ugli- 
est as well as the shortest in the English language. It is a word 
which careful parents teach their children never to use — either in 
the nominative, possessive or objective case, except on compulsion ; 
yet it is a word without which I cannot possibly get on in the duty 
you have assigned me. 

But having accepted my part, I accept also its conditions. And 
this I do all the more readily from certain advantages likely to 
accrue from it. " From one learn- all," the adage says. The history 
of one Abolitionist, howsoever humble, even though it be for a day, 
is the history, to that extent, of every other Abolitionist — and of 
the cause. There are people here, doubtless, who are ignorant of 
the character of Abolitionism and Abolitionists. Let us for once, 
Mr. Chairman, give them an inside view. Let us lay aside reserve, 
and speak with a freedom which in other circumstances would hardly 
be iustifiable. 



32 AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERT SOCIETY. 

Thirty-one years ago, this witness was a student at Andover The- 
ological Seminary. While there, a desire, which, for more than a 
year, had consumed him, culminated into a purpose. In the depths 
of his soul and before Grod, he consecrated himself to the work of a 
missionary among the heathen. What his precise motives were, it is 
not necessary here to inquire. That they were of a mixed character, 
partaking not a little of the ardor and romance of youth, subsequent 
reflection has left no room to doubt. 

There was another student at the Seminary, whose views and feel- 
ings were in harmony with my own, and Avho joined in this vow of 
self-consecration. His name was Daniel E. Jewett. I mention 
him for reasons which will presently be obvious. 

I had been at Andover but a short time — less than two months — 
when a severe domestic affliction — the death of my eldest brother — 
called me away; and I returned to my home in Carlisle, in this 
State, where I had been born and bred. 

For two or three years previous to the period now referred to, the 
country — a very considerable portion of it — had been in a state of 
high religious excitement. Every where people's attention was 
directed with unusual earnestness to the subject of personal religion. 
Since the days of Whitfield, it was said, there had been no excite- 
ment equal to it in depth and intensity ; but toward the latter part of 
1833, this excitement began to subside. The "revivals," as they 
were called, which followed this period, and which were got up by 
the machinery of " protracted meetings " and other appliances, were, 
for the most part, mere imitations — simulations; without depth and 
without earnestness. 

With the subsidence of this religious excitement in the country, 
the feelings of the sincere and enlightened who had shared in it began 
to take a new turn. Their attention was called away from them- 
selves to the condition of others. They had made sufficient progress 
in the divine life to understand that cardinal injunction : " Let no 
man seek his own, but every one his neighbor's weal." 

About this time I happened one day, in a barber-shop, to pick up 
a newspaper, the columns of which I found filled with discussions of 
the subject of slavery. It was a question to which my attention had 
never before been directed. The paper interested me exceedingly. 
Its vigor of style and the boldness of its argument were striking. 
It was the Liberator. I took it home with me, read it carefully, 
and came back the next day to talk about it. An argument arose 



I 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLATERY SOCIETY. 33 

between me and the barber, in which that gentleman had greatly the 
advantaofc. He gave me a book to take home with me: it was a 
thick pamphlet, of about the size and appearance of the Atlantic 
Monthly, and was entitled " Thoughts on Colonization." Its author 
was Wm. Lloyd Gtarrison. I read it at one sitting. The scales 
fell from my eyes. The whole truth was revealed to me. The evil 
of slavery, the vulgar cruelty of prejudice against color, the duty of 
the country and of every man in it toward the black man, were as 
plain as if they had been written out before me in letters of fire. 
From that time to this, I have been an Abolitionist. From that time 
to this, I have regarded my friend John Peck, the colored barber, as 
one of my best benefactors. 

In the latter part of 1833, I learned that there was to be a Con- 
vention in Philadelphia, for the purpose of forming a National 
Anti-Slavery Society. This information I derived from my Audover 
friend, Daniel E. Jewett. He wrote to me, begging that I would 
come to the meeting. He dwelt feelingly upon the condition of the 
two and a quarter million (that was the figure then) of our unofiend- 
ing fellow-men held in bondage, and urged me not to be insensible to 
their claims. " How do you know, my brother," he said, " that this 
may not be the ^ork to which you have, unconsciously, dedicated 
yourself? How do you know that this is not the very field which 
your yearnings have been foreshadowing ? " 

I laid what he said to heart, and determined to attend the Conven- 
tion. The little baud of pronounced Abolitionists in Carlisle — all 
of whom were black, except myself — appointed me a delegate, and 
I set off for the city. It was in the day of stage-coaches, before the 
new era of railroads, and I was two days in coming. I stopped at the 
" Indian Queen," in 4th street, then considered one of our best hotels. 
The style of caravansera known as the " first-class hotel " was not 
then known — out of Boston. Your "Tremont House," I believe, 
was at that time in the full tide of successful experiment. I lost no 
time, the next morning after my arrival, in presenting myself, ac- 
cording to directions, at the house of Friend Evan Lewis, in 5th 
street, above Cherry. Mr. Lewis was editor of a Quaker anti- 
slavery journal, called The Advocate of Truth. He was a faithful 
friend of the cause, as well as one of the most prominent at that time 
in Philadelphia. With friend Lewis I went to the Convention. It 
met in the Adelphi Building, in 5th street, below Walnut. Its pro- 
ceedings were not secret, though they were, nevertkeless, not thrown 
5 



S4 THIRTIETH ANNIVERSART OF THE 

open by advertisement to the public. There were some sixty or 
seventy delegates present, and a few spectators, who had been especi- 
ally invited. A small number, it will be said, for a National Con- 
vention. But at that time, it must be remembered, the movement 
was in its incipiency. The cloud of Abolitionism was not even so 
big as a man's hand. Now it covers the heavens ! 

When I entered the hall — which was on the morning of the second 
day — the proceedings had begun ; though, as I soon learned, there 
was no specific business before the meeting. A Committee had been 
appointed the day before, consisting of Wm. Lloyd Gtarrison, Sam- 
uel J. May, Edwin P. Atlee, and others, to draw up a Declaration 
of Sentiments; and the Convention was now expecting their report. 
While waiting. Dr. Abraham L. Cox read a poem addressed to Mr. 
GrARRisoN, Written by John G. Whittier, at that time a young 
author, comparatively unknown to fame. You remember the piece : 

"Champion of those who groan beneath 
Oppression's iron hand, 
In view of penury, hate and death, 
I see thee fearless stand. 
******* 

" I love thee with a brother's love ; 
I feel my pulses thrill 
To mark thy spirit soar above 
The cloud of human ill." 

After the poem, Lewis Tappan arose, and delivered a glowing 
eulogy upon Mr. Garrison. He related two very striking anecdotes, 
which, though I remember them distinctly, I shall not, in this pres- 
ence, repeat. He concluded by saying that it had not been his pur- 
pose to eulogize Mr. Garrison; that what he said was said in no 
spirit of panegyric, but as a matter of fidelity to truth and to the 
cause. Mr. Garrison had been struck at as a representative of the 
cause. It was our duty, he said, to repel these assaults ; to vindicate 
our faithful pioneer from the calumnies and misrepresentatioos of 
the enemy, and to stand by him " through evil report and through 
good report." 

This was the first specimen I had had of what has since been called 
" mutual admiration." And here let me say that the charge implied 
in the use made of this phrase is without just foundation. When 
Abolitionists praise their representative men, it is for the reason 
suggested by Mr. Tappan. It is to defend them against the shafts 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 35 

of pro-slavery malice and calumny. It is from a sacred regard to 
truth and the interests and honor of the cause ; and in no spirit of 
adulation, " mutual " or otherwise. 

And — if you will allow me still further to digress — I will add 
that the charge against us of using needlessly hard and denunciatory 
language is equally without foundation. Why, sir, last night, while 
Mr. Garrison was speaking, several gentlemen — new converts to 
the cause — left the house because the speaker was too tame ! Their 
hate of slavery and slaveholders, and all that belongs to the system, 
is so intense, that Mr. Garrison's terms of condemnation were not 
strong enough to relieve their minds. They are of a class whom the 
speaker sometimes meets, one of whom on a certain occasion repre- 
sented himself as belonging to the " Five Nations." He was a gen- 
tlemanly, mild-looking person — any thing but a savage in appear- 
ance — and being asked what he meant by so styling himself, he ex- 
plained by saying he was for giving the rebel slaveholders " confisca- 
tion, emancipation, ruination, extirpation and damnation." Parson 
Brownlow, also a new convert to the cause — the same that once 
persecuted the saints — is of this class. He is represented as saying 
that he is " for giving the slaveholding rebels ' Greek fire ' in this 
world, and hell fire in the next." Now, Mr. Chairman, this is not 
the language nor is it the spirit of the old Abolitionists. The 
charge of using hard and acrimonious language lies not properly at 
our door. 

But to return from my digression. Mr. Tappan's speech was 
interrupted by the announcement that Mr. Garrison and the rest of 
the Committee were coming in with their report. They had pre- 
pai-ed a draft of a Declaration, and it devolved upon Dr. Edwin P. 
Atlee to read it. After the reading, followed criticism of its con- 
tents — or, rather, criticism of some of its phrases; for, as a whole, 
the paper commended itself at once to all who heard it. Thomas 
Shipley, that good man and faithful friend of the slave, objected to 
the word " man-stealer " as applied indiscriminately to the slavehold- 
ers. To this it was replied that the term was an eminently proper 
one ; that it described the exact relation between the master and the 
slave. It was urged that things should be called by their ri^ht 
names ; that Luther had said he would " call a hoe a hoe, and a 
spade a spade." Besides, it was added, it was a scriptural phrase, 
and the chapter and verse were quoted in which it was used. This 
mollified friend Shipley, though it did not set his mind entirely at 



36 THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 

rest. At length, some one suggested that the term should be retained, 
but that it should be preceded by the words, " according to Scrip- 
ture." This met the difficulty, and the paper was amended so as to 
read : " Every American citizen who holds a human being in invol- 
untary bondage as his property, is, according to Scripture, (Exodus 
21 : 16,) a man-stealer." 

Among the speakers, while the Declaration was under discussion, 
were two who interested me particularly. One was a countryman 
dressed in the plainest garb, and in appearance otherwise not par- 
ticularly calculated to excite expectation. His manner was angu- 
lar, and his rhetoric not what would be called graceful. But his 
matter was solid, and as clear as a bell. It had the ring of the 
genuine metal, and was, moreover, pat to the point in question. 
When he sat down — which he did after a very brief speech — the 
question was asked : " Who is that ? " and the answer came : 
" Thomas Whitson, of Lancaster county, in this State." 

The other speaker was a woman. I had never before heard a 
woman speak at a public meeting. She said but a few words, but 
these were spoken so modestly, in such sweet tones, and yet withal so 
decisively, that no one could fail to be pleased. And no one did fail 
to be pleased. She apologized for what might be regarded as an 
intrusion ; but she was assured by the Chairman and others that what 
she had said was very acceptable. The Chairman added his hope 
that " the lady " would not hesitate to give expression to any thing 
that might occur to her during the course of the proceedings. 

This debate on the Declaration took place in Committee of the 
Whole. After one or two slight verbal changes, the Committee 
arose, and reported the document to the Convention. It was adopted 
unanimously, and ordered to be engrossed. The next morning, being 
the last session of the Convention, it was brought in engrossed and 
ready for signature. Before the work of signing began, it was agreed 
that it should be read once more. The task was assigned to our 
friend, Samuel J. May, who performed it with much feeling. At 
times his emotion was such as to prevent him for awhile from pro- 
ceeding. The same feeling pervaded the audience. Then followed 
informally the ceremony of signing. Each one, as he came up to 
put his name to the instrument, showed by his manner, and, in some 
instances, by his words, that he was doing a very solemn thing. 

By this time I had come to be tolerably well acquainted with the 
Convention, both as a whole, and in its individual members. My 



AMERICAN ANTT-SLAVERT SOCIETY, 37 

part in the proceedings had been, and was to the end, a silent one. 
The only distinction I enjoyed was that of being the youngest mem- 
ber of the body. 

Looking back upon this interesting occasion, the whole thing cornea 
up before me with the distinctness of a picture. I see the Conven- 
tion just as it sat in that little hall of the Adelphi Building. I see 
the President, Beriah Green, of Oneida Institute, sitting on an emi- 
nence in the west end of the hall ; at either side of him the two Sec- 
retaries, Lewis Tappan and Joun G. Whittier. 

Mr. Green, though as it proved one of the best men that could 
have been had for the office, was not the person originally contem- 
plated for Chairman. The Abolitionists at that time, like other 
people, had an idea that a Convention would not be a Convention 
without a man with a great name to serve as Chairman ; therefore, 
when the delegates came to Philadelphia, the first thing they did was 
to cast about for some man of distinction to preside. They called on 
Thomas Wistar, a venerable and wealthy member of the Society of 
Friends; but he declined. Then they waited upon Mr. Roberts 
Vaux, an aged and highly respected citizen, whose social position 
and reputation as a philanthropist indicated him as a proper person 
to preside over the meeting. He received the Committee politely, 
and listened to them courteously. He sympathized with them in 
their general object ; he was opposed to slavery, and would be glad 
to see it abolished; but — and then followed the usual objections; 
and, in short, while grateful for the honor rendered him, Mr. Vaux 
begged leave respectfully to decline. 

Discouraged in their attempts to find a great man for Chairman, 
the delegation concluded to select for this purpose one of their own 
number ; and the choice fell upon Beriah Green. A better man 
could not have been selected. Though of plain exterior and unim- 
posing presence, Mr. Green was a man of learning and superior abil- 
ity; in every way above the average of so-called men of eminence. 

Mr. Tappan, who sat at his right, was a jaunty, man-of-the-world 
looking person; well dressed and handsome; with a fine voice and 
taking appearance. Whittier, who sat at his left, was quite as fine 
looking, though in a different way. He wore a dark frock coat with 
standing collar, which, with his thin hair, dark and sometimes flash- 
ing eyes, and black whiskers — not large, but noticeable in those un- 
hirsute days — gave him, to my then unpractised eye, quite as much 
of a military as a Quaker aspect. His broad, square forehead and 



38 THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 

well-cut features, aided by his incipient reputation as a poet, made 
him quite a noticeable feature in the Convention. 

These were the officers of the meeting ; the rest were all upon a 
dead level of equality. There were no distinctions tolerated among 
the members. At an early stage of the proceedings, it was deter- 
mined that no titles should be given or received ; no Honorables, 
Doctors, or Esquires. Men were to be recognized as men, and all 
factitious distinctions discarded. It was a levelling Convention, in 
the best sense of that word. 

It is impossible, Mr. Chairman, to look back upon those days 
without noticing that Time, with his remorseless scythe, has been at 
his inevitable work. Death has thinned our numbers. Some of 
the best members of that Convention have gone to their rest. 
Among these was good Thomas Shipley, whose departure Whittier 
has so beautifully commemorated : 

" Gone to thy Heavenly Father's rest, 

The flowers of Eden round thee blowing, 
And on thine ears the murmurs blest 
Of Siloa's waters gently flowing. 
****** * 

" loved of thousands ! to thy grave, 

Sorrowing of heart, thy brethren bore thee; 
The poor man and the rescued slave 

Wept as the broken earth closed o'er thee." 

Evan Lewis, another of the Philadelphia delegates, took his de- 
parture soon after the holding of the Convention. He was an able 
and faithful friend of the cause, and performed his part well. 
Though dead, he yet speaketh. She who was the partner of his toils 
while he lived, remains to finish the task which they had jointly 
undertaken ; and the mantle of the father has, in a good measure, 
fallen upon the shoulders of his children. 

Dr. Edwin Atlee, the younger, another Philadelphia member of 
the Convention, passed early from the scene of conflict. Faithful 
and true to the cause while he lived, he left, in his good name, an 
inheritance of which his children may well be proud, and which 
should ever be a stimulus to them in works of well-doing. 

Of the members of the Convention who remain, I shall not speak. 
Quite a number are here to speak for themselves. Among them I 
may be excused for mentioning the three who are respectively the 
President and Vice-Presidents of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery 
Society ; James Mott, Robert Purvis, and Thomas Whitson. 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 39 

Mr. MoTT, ■when I saw him at the Adelphi Building, thirty years 
ago, was in the prime of manhood. He was tall, and as straight as 
an arrow; his sandy hair untouched by the frosts of time. Thomas 
WuiTSON was also in the prime of life; tall, hearty, and progressive. 
. His full shock of stubborn brown hair showed that he had not yet 
reached the climax of his vigor. He was stalwart in body and robust 
in mind, and ready for a tussle with any opponent. Mr, Purvis was 
in the full bloom of opening manhood ; ardent, impetuous, and over- 
flowing with enthusiasm. You will remember the speech he made, 
Mr. Chairman — so exactly like himself. Impassioned, full of invec- 
tive, bristling with epithets, denouncing " that diabolical and fiendish 
system of atrocity, American slavery, and that equally rapacious, 
and, if possible, still more detestable scheme, the infamous Coloniza- 
tion Society." 

At that Convention there were no adjournments for dinner. We 
sat daily from ten o'clock A. M. till dark, without recess. We had 
meat to eat which those who have never been " caught up into the third 
heaven " of first principles wot not of. The last hours of the Con- 
vention were especially impressive. I had never before, nor have I 
ever since, witnessed any thing fully equal to it. The deep religious 
spirit which had pervaded the meeting from the beginning became still 
deeper. The evidence of the Divine presence and the Divine ap- 
proval were palpable. Had we heard a voice saying, " Put oif thy 
shoes from off thy feet, for the ground whereon thou standest is holy 
ground," our convictions could scarcely have been clearer. 

Those who were there will never forget the address with which 
President Green closed the Convention. The concluding part of that 
address was somewhat as follows : 

" Brethren, it has been good to be here. In this hallowed atmos- 
phere I have been revived and refreshed. This brief interview has 
more than repaid me for all that I have ever suffered. I have here 
met congenial minds ; I have rejoiced in sympathies delightful to 
the soul. Heart has beat responsive to heart, and the holy work of 
seeking to benefit the outraged and despised has proved the most 
blessed employment. 

" But now we must retire from these balmy influences, and breathe 
another atmosphere. The chill hoar frost will be upon us. The 
storm and tempest will rise, and the waves of persecution will dash 
against our souls. Let us be prepared for the worst. Let us fasten 
ourselves to the throne of God as with hooks of steel. If we cling 
not to Him, our names to that document will be but as dust. 

" Let us court no applause ; indulge in no spirit of vain boasting. 



40 THIRTIETH ANNIVEKSARY OF THE 

Let US be assured that our only hope in grappling with the bony 
monster is in an Arm that is stronger than ours. Let us fix our 
gaze on God, and walk in the liglit of His countenance. If our 
cause be just — and we know it is — His omnipotence is pledged to 
its triumph. Let this cause be entwined around the very fibres of 
our hearts. Let our hearts grow to it, so that nothing but death can 
sunder the bond." 

As Mr. Geeen finished, he lifted up his voice in prayer ; and such 
a prayer is rarely heard. Its fervency and faith seemed to illustrate 
what the speaker had said about " taking hold of the throne as with 
hooks of steel," and "gazing upon the very face of God." 

But, Mr. Chairman, I have been speaking for three-quarters of an 
hour, and have as yet scarcely touched the threshold of my subject. 
Reminiscences ! They come upon me so thick and fast that the 
whole time of this Convention would not suffice to give them expres- 
sion. Here I have been lingering over a few of the incidents of the 
first three days of the great anti-slavery epoch : what shall I say of 
the whole thirty years which have followed, every day of which has 
been freighted with an event — every hour with some striking inci- 
dent ! 

I must now stop, and give place to others. I have already con- 
sumed more than my fair share of the time. We have more than a 
score of able speakers here, every one of whom has a prescriptive 
right to be heard. So, without further words, I abruptly close. 

At the request of Mr. Garrison, the signers of the Declaration of 
Sentiments arose, and the following were found to be present : Isaac 
WiNSLOW, Orson S. Murray, William Lloyd Garrison, Samuel 
Joseph May, Robert Purvis, Bartholomew Fussell, Enoch Mack, 
James Miller McKim, Thomas Whitson, James Mott, James Mc- 
Crummell.* 

Samuel J. May. There were others who were members of the 
Convention, whose names were not signed to the Declaration ; and I 
look back with a feeling of shame to the fact, that there were four or 
five women — Lucretia Mott, Esther Moore, Lydia White, Sid- 
ney Ann Lewis — who did us good service; who spoke, and spoke 
always to the purpose ; and I remember that, in one or two instances, 
they relieved us from difficulties into which we had got ourselves in 

*See Appendix B. 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 41 

the discussion. Perfectly well I remember them. Why were their 
names not signed to the Declaration ? It shows that we were in the 
dark on the subject. But their names should always go down to pos- 
terity as active members of the Convention ; and I desire that they 
should be remembered as having taken an active and important part 
with us. 

Mary Grew. Why were their names not signed ? 

Mr. May. Because we had no conception of the rights of women. 
Because it would then have been thought an impropriety ; a thought 
at which we all laugh now. 

Mr. GrARRisON. To show the spirit which prevailed in that Con- 
vention, of unusual liberality certainly for those times, let me read 
two resolutions therein adopted : 

Resolved, That the cause of Abolition eminently deserves the 
countenance and support of x\merican women, inasmuch as one mil- 
lion of their colored sisters are pining in abject servitude — as their 
example and influence operate measurably as laws to society — and 
as the exertions of the females of Great Britain have been signally 
instrumental in liberating eight hundred thousand slaves in the Colo- 
nies. 

Resolved, That we hail the establishment of Ladies' Anti-Slavery 
Societies as the harbinger of a brighter day, and that we feel great 
confidence in the efficiency of their exertions; and that those ladies 
who have promptly come forth in this great work are deserving the 
thanks of those wlao are ready to perish. 

You remember that in 1840, our friend, then Miss Abby Kelley, 
was placed on our Business Committee, and the American Anti- 
Slavery Society was broken asunder, and almost entirely ship- 
wrecked. But we have got bravely over it ; and now there is no 
question in any part of our country that is free, in regard to the 
right of woman to speak as freely as man speaks, and to be as freely 
heard. 

LucRETiA MoTT. I deem it but just to state, that although we 
were not recognized as a part of the Convention by signing the docu- 
ment, yet every courtesy was shown to us, every encouragement to 
speak, or to make any suggestions of alterations in the document, or 
any others. 1 do not think it occurred to any one of us at that time, 
that there would be a propriety in our signing the document. In the 
evening, at our house, I remember a conversation with our friend 



42 THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 

Samuel J. May, in the course of which I remarked, that we could 
not expect that women should be fully recognized in such assemblages 
as that, while the monopoly of the pulpit existed. It was with diffi- 
dence, I acknowledge, that I ventured to express what had been near 
to my heart for so many years, for I knew that we were there by suf- 
ferance. It was after the Convention had gathered on the second 
day, that the invitation was sent out. Thomas Whitson came to our 
house with an invitation to women to come there as spectators or as 
listeners. I felt such a desire that others than those assembled at our 
own house should hear, that I wanted to go here and there, and notify 
persons to go ; but I was asked not to use up the whole morning in 
notifying others, for we must try and be there ourselves. When I 
rose to speak, with the knowledge that we were there by sufferance, 
and it would be only a liberty granted that I should attempt to ex- 
press myself, such was the readiness with which that freedom was 
granted, that it inspired me with a little more boldness to speak on 
other subjects. 

When this Declaration, that has been read to us here to-day, and 
that we have so often delighted to hear, was under consideration, and 
we were considering our principles and our intended measures of 
action ; when our friends felt that they were planting themselves on 
the truths of Divine Revelation, and on the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, as an Everlasting Rock, it seemed to me, as I heard it 
read, that the climax would be better to transpose the sentence, and 
place the Declaration of Independence first, and the truths of Divine 
Revelation last, as the Everlasting Rock ; and I proposed it. I 
remember one of the younger members, Daniel E. Jewett, turning 
to see what woman there was there who knew what the word " trans- 
pose " meant. (Laughter.) 

It has been honestly confessed that there was not, at that time, a 
conception of the rights of woman. Indeed, women little knew their 
influence, or the proper exercise of their own rights. I remember 
that it was urged upon us, immediately after that Convention, to 
form a Female Anti-Slavery Society ; and at that time, I had no idea 
of the meaning of preambles and resolutions and votings. Women 
had never been in any assemblies of the kind. I had only attended 
one Convention — a Convention of colored people in this State — 
before that ; and that was the first time in my life I had ever heard 
a vote taken, being accustomed to our Quaker way of getting the 
prevailing sentiment of the meeting. When, a short time after, we 



AMEFaCAN ANTI-SLAVEKY SOCIETY. 43 

came together to form the Female Anti-Slavery Society, which I am 
rejoiced to say is still extant, still flourishing, there was not a wo- 
man capable of taking the chair, and organizing that meeting in due 
order : and we had to call on James McCuumjiell, a colored man, to 
give us aid in the work. You know that at that time, and even to 
the present day, negroes, idiots and women were in legal documents 
classed together; so that we were very glad to get one of our own 
class (laughter) to come and aid us in forming that Society. 

SPEECH OF REV. SA]\IUEL J. MAY. 

I have also been asked for reminiscences. May I be permitted to 
commence a little further back than the formation of this Society? 
The greatest event in my moral or spiritual life occurred on the 
evening when I first heard our friend William Lloyd Garrison, in 
Eoston, in the Fall of 1830. I was so impressed by his words, that 
a resolution was formed in my soul, from that moment, to dedicate 
myself to the cause of the slave. I was called on to preach in the 
city of Boston the following Sunday. I am ashamed to say that I 
had nothing at all, in any of the sermons I had taken with me, bear- 
ing in the least on this great subject. But, fortunately, I had a 
sermon on Prejudice. So I appended to that hastily, in pencil, an 
application of the doctrine of the sermon to the condition of the col- 
ored people in our country. I delivered the sermon. I will not 
stop now to describe to you the effect that it had upon the audience. 
The reminiscence is called to my mind merely by what has been said 
this afternoon respecting the early influence of woman. The excite- 
ment was very great. The minister of the church was exceedingly 
angry, and spoke to me in terms of stern reproof, and said I should 
never enter his pulpit again. As I passed out of the house, I saw 
on all hands that an unusual emotion had been awakened throughout 
the congregation. When I arrived at the vestibule of the church, I 
found it well-nigh filled with persons talking busily together about 
the strange utterance to which they had listened. A woman, press- 
ing through the crowd, stepped up to me, her countenance sufi"used 
with emotion, the tears trickling down her cheeks, and had the cour- 
age to stretch forth her hand to me, and say, " Mr. May, I thank you. 
What a shame it is that I, who have now been for nearly thirty years 
attending meeting in what are called Christian churches, have never 
before heard an earnest appeal on behalf of the wronged and outraged 



44 THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 

colored people of our country ! " I shall never forget that woman. 
It was an event that sent deep into my soul that reverence which I 
now feel for woman, (Applause.) 

The first letter that you read this morning brought to my mind 
another reminiscence which antedates the meeting that formed this 
Society. Early in the Spring of that year, a noble woman, Prudence 
Crandall, in the town of Canterbury, Conn., in the simplest and 
most unostentatious manner, led to it by an event which she neither 
courted nor sought to avoid, proffered her school, which had attained 
some reputation, to the children of colored persons, and such others 
as pleased to send their children with them. The excitement can 
better be imagined than described. The people rose almost in a body, 
and the poor woman was overwhelmed with expressions of abhorrence 
and determined opposition. Of course, I went to her, and proffered 
her such aid as I could give. Without entering into the narrative 
at all, I will merely say that, in a day or two, I found myself sol- 
emnly pledged to test the question of that woman's right under the 
law to open a school for colored persons — a right which they called 
in question. I had pledged myself to Andrew T. Jddson, after- 
wards one of the Judges of the Supreme Court of the United States, 
who was her principal persecutor, to try that question from the low- 
est court in Canterbury to the highest court in the United States. 
He said tauntingly to me, " Ho ! ho I Do you know what you under- 
take?" "Perhaps I don't," was my reply. "It will cost you 
money — a vast deal of money." " It may," said I. I had not con- 
sulted an individual, excepting only my friend, that most excellent 
man, Gteorge Benson, the father of Mrs, Garrison, Said I, " So 
sure am I that the aim of this movement will be justly appreciated 
by philanthropists throughout our country, that I shall have all the 
money I want." I confess, however, to a little trembling after a 
time, when not an individual offered me a dollar to sustain me in that 
trial. A few days, however, brought me a letter from that true phi- 
lanthropist, Arthur Tappan, The story had got into the newspa- 
pers, and was "noised abroad. Arthur Tappan I had known in my 
childhood, but had not seen him for many years. He had then 
become a very wealthy man, wielding, it was said, something like 
seventeen hundred thousand dollars. It was a very cordial letter, 
saying, in substance, " I have heard of what you have undertaken ; I 
heartily approve of it. If I am not mistaken, you have not the 
means to carry on the trial that you have invoked. I therefore beg 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERT SOCIETY. 45 

you to consider mo as your banker, who will honor all your drafts." 
(Applause.) I confess, Mr. President, I could hardly keep on my 
feet, walking with seventeen hundred thousand dollars in my bank ! 
But I will not go on with the story ; it is very long. I will merely 
say, that after two years of controversy, that cost over $600, which 
was readily paid by Mr. Tappan, the result of that controversy was 
in favor of Miss Crandall. (Applause.) 

Mr. Garrison. I happen to have here a volume from which I 
will read a paragraph : — 

" TuE Black Law of Connecticut. Wc neglected, in our last, 
to mention that Miss Ckandall, for a violation of the notorious stat- 
ute of Connecticut, in continuing to instruct colored children, had 
been arrested and carried before a Justice of the Peace, by whom she 
was committed to jail, to take her trial at the ensuing court. She 
was confined in the same room which was occupied by the murderer 
Watkins during the last days of his life." 

Mr. May. I must confess to a little management in that matter. 
Of course, if any one of us had come forward, and given bonds for 
Miss Crandall, she would not have been incarcerated. But I went, 
assisted by my friend Mr. George Benson, diligently around among 
my friends, and instructed them that no one should give bonds. The 
law was an ex 'post facto one. It was enacted by the Legislature of 
Connecticut after the school was commenced. Nevertheless, they 
prosecuted her under that law, and I received due information that 
the trial was to take place. I said, " Very well ; you can let it go 
on if you will." Presently came a messenger, informing me that the 
Judge had found her guilty, and that they wanted some one to give 
bonds. "Very well, you can give bonds; there are enough of you 
in Canterbury to do it." Then they wanted to know if I would not. 
" Certainly not," said I ; " I have something else to do besides giving 
bonds." Miss Crandall understood what was to be done. I wanted 
to let the people know how odious the law was ; and if her bonds had 
been but a cent, I should not have given them. They came to me a 
second time; but I said, "It is useless; I shall give no bonds." 
Presently the report came that the Sheriff was approaching the town 
where I lived, and whfere the jail was, with Miss Crandall. Mean- 
while, I had had the cell, where Watkins had been lately confined, 
nicely cleaned and whitewashed, and had a comfortable bed put in it, 
and one of Mrs. Garrison's sisters, Miss Anne Benson, consented to go 



46 THIUTIETH ANNITERSARY OF THE 

and spend the night with Miss C Randall. So the Sheriff brought up 
Miss Crandall, and I found opportunity to say to her, " Are you 
afraid?" "No," said she, "I am trembling lest they shouldn't put 
me in," (Applause.) Then they came to me again, and said, " It is 
only five miles; if you will get some one to give bonds, we will go 
and get the Judge." " My dear friends," said I, " if the Judge was 
here, and the bonds were three cents, I should not give them, nor 
would any body else, if I could prevent it. If you want to avert the 
imprisonment, you have only to give bonds yourselves. Let A. T. 
JuDSON, or somebody else, give bonds for her," But they were too 
stuffy for that, and foolishly said, "Put her in." She was put in; 
and when the key was turned, and taken out of the lock, the game 
was in my hands. Of course, it was announced in all the papers 
that, for keeping a school for colored girls in the State of Connec- 
ticut, that boasted itself more than all the States of its large appro- 
priations for the universal education of the people, a noble young 
woman had been incarcerated in the cell of a murderer. You man- 
age a newspaper, brother, and you know how such things sound. 
The tale went the country over. 

The next day we let Miss Crandall out, by giving bonds, and I 
took my horse and chaise, and my wife and children, and went off and 
refreshed myself with a little journey, knowing that the matter would 
work exactly as I intended it should. 

That is a reminiscence, I am thirty years older than I was thirty 
years ago, and getting a little into that period of life when we are 
apt to become garrulous ; so you must stop me if I say too much. 
But I wished to do this justice to Arthur Tappan. I do not know 
that the part he took in it was ever publicly announced before. 
Think of it ! He sent me word to employ the best counsel ; and so 
I did. William W. Ellsworth, afterwards Governor of the State, 
was one of my counsel ; and Calvin GtOddard, formerly one of the 
Judges of the Supreme Court, was another. They were among the 
most distinguished lawyers of the State. They were very generous. 
They did not charge me what they might have done. Nevertheless, 
the expenses on the whole amounted to over 0600, all of which were 
paid by Mr, Tappan. 

Nor is that all. The papers of the county all refused, although 
filled with the most egregious misrepresentations of Miss Crandall, 
of the purposes of her school, and of the intentions of her patrons 
and friends, to allow nie a line for e.Kplanation. Even the editor of 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLATERY SOCIETY. 47 

one of the papers, whom I had assisted in getting up his publication, 
told me that he could not ; that it would be the destruction of his 
. paper to admit any thing upon the subject, excepting what our oppo- 
nents might send. Of course, I was somewhat disturbed at this. I 
wrote a letter to Mr. Tappan, saying that I would come and see him 
if I could escape from my engagements long enough, but the pressure 
on me was very heavy. Two days after, who should enter my study 
but ArthuPv Tappan, leaving his immense business, his large mone- 
tary concerns in New York, to come and see me, because I could not 
go to see him ! After I had laid the matter before him, he said 
to me, " Start another paper." It so happened that there were types 
and an unused press in town ; and I went as soon as he had left, and 
engaged them for a year, and started my paper, called The Unionist. 

x\nd here comes another reminiscence. I had been so happy as 
once to hear our friend Charles C. Burleigh speak in a public 
meeting, and to hear him once was enough to know there was a great 
deal in him. I was then not only in charge of a parish which 
required the full exercise of the little ability that I had, but I was 
also conducting a religious paper, into which, unfortunately, in the 
prospectus, not foreseeing what would occur, I had pledged myself 
that there should be nothing of personal or local controversy admit- 
ted. So that, although I was editing a paper, I could not defend 
myself in it against these assaults of my enemies, consistently with 
my prospectus; therefore Mr. Tappax told me to start another 
paper. But I could not carry on two papers. So I bethought me 
of this young man, Charles C. Burleigh, and harnessed my horse 
and went after him. It was on Friday, in the midst of haying time. 
A very busy week he had had of it, and although he then believed in 
shaving, he had not shaved himself since the haying season com- 
menced. I went to the house of his excellent father, and inquired for 
Charles. " He is in the hay field, as busy as he can be." Neverthe- 
less, I must see him ; and I sent for him, and up he came; and I am 
sure he looked as much like the son of Jesse, when he came to Sam- 
uel to be anointed, as David did himself. Nevertheless, I saw it 
was Charles Burleigh, and I told him what f wanted. He engaged 
to be with me the next Monday morning, and he was. He did good 
service in the cause. He wrote himself into a reputation that has 
been, I believe, increasing ever since, as a writer and as a speaker. 

You see, Mr. President, you tapped rather a full cask. That is a 
reminiscence I had no thought of bringing up. But now, to come 



48 THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 

back to the Convention, where you wanted me to begin. I said to 
my brother Johnson, while brother McKm was speaking, that I 
thought his introduction was a little too long ; mine has been longer, 
so he must forgive me. And now I will give you a reminiscence 
about him. He came all the way from Andover to the Conven- 
tion — 

Mr. McKiM. No, I came from Carlisle ; I was only six weeks at 
Andover. 

Mr. May. At any rate, he was a Simon-pure, blue Presbyterian, 
I suppose. But his heart was moved in the cause of humanity, and 
that turned the sourest of his dogmas to sweet. After we had been 
in session two days together, and were coming out of the Convention 
in the evening, I felt a grip on my arm, and heard brother McKim 
ask — "Brother May, are you a Unitarian?" "Yes," said I, "I 
am as much of a Unitarian as I am of an Abolitionist." "Well, I 
never expected to feel towards a Unitarian as I do towards you." 
(Laughter.) I believe the hearts of all present at that meeting were 
drawn together with an affection that can never die out, so long as we 
live. The countenances of the friends who were there then cheer my 
heart as no other countenances in this world could. They bring back 
to my recollection that meeting, in the midst of the most malignant 
opposition. When I read the Press this morning, speaking so kindly, 
cordially, admiringly of Mr. Garrison, I could not help thinking of 
the announcement in the papers on the morning of the day that our 
Convention commenced, thirty years ago. We were spoken of singly, 
some half dozen or more of us, and to each name was appended some 
epithet, intended, doubtless, as it was adapted, to awaken the malig- 
nant hatred of the community. The Police gave us to understand 
that they could not protect us in the evening, and that our meetings 
must be held during the daylight. So we met in the morning at nine, 
and adjourned at sundown. I very well remember that my name 
was announced as the " Rev. Dr. May, of Connecticut, the leader of 
the amalgamationists." That title was assigned me in consequence 
of a discussion which I had had in Connecticut with Andrew T. 
JuDSON, which had been reported in^he papers, and in which he 
thought, in the presence of a large assembly, to put me down by 
asking, "Sir, I want to know whether you are willing that your 
daughter should marry a nigger ? " Of course, the audience were as 
silent as possible to hear my answer. Said I, " I am not willing that 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 49 

my daughter, my only daughter, should marry any unfortunate man. 
I regard the colored men of our country as most unfortunate men ; 
and therefore I should not be willing that she should marry one." 
There was a chuckling in the audience, and a smile of triumph on 
many faces. Said I, " Stop ! I have given you only half the answer. 
If you wish me to say whether I would rather my daughter should 
marry a man every way adapted to her, the only objection to whom 
should be his complexion, or should marry a man whose only recom- 
mendation to her should be his complexion, of course I should say, 
let her a thousand times rather marry the blackest man that you 
could find." (Applause.) It was because of that answer, which went 
through the papers at the time, that I was trumpeted here as the 
"leader of the amalgamationists." That is another reminiscence. 

I gave so full an account, ten years ago, of my recollections of our 
meeting at the formation of the Society, that I am afraid I shall 
repeat myself if I go on much longer in this strain. I wish I could 
remember cpe of the brothers who rose in the midst of the Conven- 
tion, and said, in reply to a suggestion for the softening of some of 
our measures, " Can you draw out Leviathan with a hook, or the 
great sea-serpent with a pin-hook?" Of course, that settled the 
question ! 

But I will not detain you longer. I will only set myself right on 
the woman question. When I first heard that Angelina Grimke 
was lecturing in New Yoi'k, I was a minister in South Scituate, 
Mass. She was lecturing to crowded audiences of men and women 
indiscriminately, and, of course, I was very much shocked. But in 
connection with the account of her large audiences, and the compo- 
sition of her audiences, were statements of the immense power with 
which she spoke. I took the two facts with me into my study, and 
sat down and looked them fully in the face. A woman was address- 
ing promiscuous audiences with immense power. Said I to myself. 
Whence came that power? Is a God-given power in woman, any 
more than in man, to be unused? Does He give her talents to be 
wrapped in a napkin or buried in the ground, any more than to man ? 
Certainly not ; and the difiiculty was dispelled from my miud. So 
I sat down, and wrote her a letter: — 

" Dear Miss Grimke : I hear you have been addressing promis- 
cuous audiences. I am astonished ; it is in such utter violation of all 
that we have considered proper and decorous and becoming in your 



50 THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 

sex ! Nevertheless, I am satisfied that it is a prejudice, and I beg 
you to come to my home, aud assist me as soon as possible to trample 
it under my feet." 

She came. Meanwhile, I had given notice in different parts of the 
town and county where I lived, that she would address a meeting in 
my meeting-house first, and in another meeting-house afterwards, and 
so through the county. I took her and her sister all through the 
county, lecturing wherever a nieeting-house could be found in which 
she could be heard; and an impression was made in that county 
which I trust is perceptible to this day. Is there a county in the 
State of Massachusetts that is more truly anti-slavery than Plymouth 
county? If there is, I know it not. I remember at one of the 
meetings some gentlemen living in Hingham had said very hard 
things about me. They appeared at the door, and presently they 
came further in. I watched them. Very soon their attention was 
arrested, enchained. They drew nearer and nearer, an4 I saw their 
countenances lighted up with emotion ; and I was satisfied that they 
had felt the power of the speakers. When the meeting was over, 
they came bristling up to me : " What are you going about the coun- 
ty with these women for, setting at nought all the usages and pro- 
prieties of society? But we wish you to bring them to Hingham as 
soon as you please!" And so a meeting was held in Hingham, the 
most important town in the county excepting Plymouth ; and there 
Miss Gkimke made one of her grandest speeches; which, however, I 
am sorry to add, caused her a long fit of sickness, and obliged her to 
suspend her invaluable labors. 

An allusion has been made to-night to the mob of October 21, 
1835, in Boston. It is a fact of which you may not all be aware, 
showing the almost complete universality of the feeling which per- 
meated the people of our country in regard to the Abolitionists as 
the enemies of the public, that, oni that very day, Beriah Green, 
Gekrit Smith, and several others of the leading Abolitionists of 
New York, were undergoing at Utica the same treatment almost that 
Mr. Garrison received. And on that same day I was myself 
mobbed, my person attackeil, and my life threatened, in the village 
of Montpelier, the capital of Vermont. On one and the same day, 
in three different States of the Union, at the North, Abolitionists 
were mobbed, simply for proclaiming the glorious truths of the 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 51 

Declaration, and insisting upon their application to all men. And 
this reminds me of one more reminiscence, with which I will clo?e. 
For several years after I became acquainted with those " pestilent 
men " who have turned the world upside do>in, so that it now stands 
right side up, I devoted the greater part of my time to lecturing; 
and there is a fact I should like to have you all remember, to show 
you how naughty we were in the outset of our movement. More 
than a dozen times, as I approached a village to lecture, I would 
meet some prominent man, or after I got there he would call upon 
me at the hotel, and say: "Mr. May, you have come to deliver a 
lecture on slavery in our village?" "Yes, sir, I propose to do so." 
"Do you not know that this question of slavery was considered by 
the framers of the Constitution of our country, and that they adjusted 
it?" "Sir," I replied, "did you ever read the Constitution of the 

United States?" "You don't pretend to deny, Mr. May" 

" Did you ever read the 'Constitution of the United States? " " Why, 

sir, every body " "Did you ever read the Constitution of the 

United States?" And certainly more than a dozen times I found 
men, holding high positions in society, who acknowledged that they 
had never read the Constitution ! I reported it to the managers of 
our Society, in Boston, and one of the naughty things that we did at 
that time was to publish a cheap edition of the Constitution of the 
United States, and circulate it as one of our anti-slavery tracts. Did 
we not deserve all the harsh epithets and ill treatment with which we 
have been visited ? (Laughter and applause.) 

The Society adjourned, to meet the next day, at 10 A. M. 



52 THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THB 



SECOND DAY— Forenoon Session. 

The Society assembled promptly, and in the absence of the Presi- 
dent, J. M. McKiM was called to the chair. It being announced 
that the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher was present and could remain 
but a few minutes, (being under the necessity of returning immedi- 
ately to New York,) he was invited to address the meeting. Upon 
coming to the platform, he was greeted with enthusiastic cheers. 

SPEECH OF REV. HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

It gives me great pleasure to meet you this morning, and none the 
less because we meet in circumstances of peace and of prosperity. After 
a long battle, with weapons not carnal but spiritual, it seems as if at 
last a victory was beginning to dawn upon us. I have lived for more 
than twenty-five years on faith, and have learned to subsist upon it 
tolerably well ; though I confess that a little sight now and then helps 
one's faith very much. But there are a great many who have not 
been able to live on this diet of faith, and now that they are being 
fed on sight, they are falling into line, and beginning to train in the 
great anti-slavery army. 

I do not stand here this morning so much to go into any analysis 
or measurement of shades of opinion, as to recognize the great ser- 
vices that, for a long period, without weariness, against every human 
discourao-ement, have been rendered to the cause of patriotism, of 
religion, and of humanity, by those that are represented in this Asso- 
ciation. There have been, of course, all this time, differences of 
opinion among the friends of freedom ; but I think that all honest 
men will agree, that for sincerity, profound conviction, heroism and 
moral courage, the members and adherents of this Anti-Slavery Soci- 
ety have stood preeminent. And when the history of this struggle 
shall be written, no inconspicuous place will be given to those that shall 
then have passed away ; and we shall see, what we see in every age 
of the world, men mobbed when they lived, but splendid tombs built 
for them when they are dead. But you care little for that. The 
spirit in which you have worked is one which works for the sake of 
the work, for the sake of God who inspiies it. I doubt not you have 
taken your remuneration as you went along, and could have afforded 
to die with your testimony on your lips, without having seen the sight, 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 53 

or, like Moses, having seen it only at a distance. But better things 
are in store for us. All the signs of the times look as though God 
meant emancipation, in earnest, and meant it now. Whatever may 
have been men's ideas in respect to immediate emancipation, as the 
term is usually employed, I think that war has but one doctrine upon 
the subject, and that we are coming to it — that we, if we live a few 
years longer, shall see our country disembarrassed and uncursed by 
this monstrous evil, this gigantic iniquity. 

Last night, Governor Cuktin said that the doctrine enunciated in 
my remarks, namely, that we had no right to lay down the sword, 
having taken it up, until wc had utterly exterminated the cause of 
the war. Slavery, was the doctrine of Pennsylvania. Undoubtedly 
he has been in circumstances to know the pulse and the feeling of this 
people. North of Pennsylvania, I think I may say I know it to be 
the doctrine of the people. It seems as though in the Providence of 
God, the underground work having been done, and the foundation 
having been brought up to the surface, and the building going up in 
the sunlight, its pioportions of beauty becoming more and more appa- 
rent, we can have workmen now wbom we could never have invited 
into the trench under ground. My wish is, more and more, that we 
should, for the sake of the great cause, lay aside the things in which 
we differ, and work together for the things upon which we are agreed, 
God working in ys to will and to do of his own good pleasure. 

For myself, I have vowed that if a man will now set his face 
towards emancipation, I will never look an inch behind him to see 
what he thought yesterday or the day before. I will not scan his 
record unless he becomes a critic of mine. But I will put my 
shoulder beside the shoulder of any man who will march in the ranks 
now. I will not ask who shall be leader ; only that there shall be a 
leader, and that he shall lead in the right direction. I only ask to 
be in the ranks, to work as every other man works, not for himself, 
not for any party, but for the sake of God and the country, for the 
cause of Christ as it is embodied and represented in this era of our 
national history, for the sake of those that are in bondage, and must 
be in bondage as long as there is a slave in this land ; for you are 
slaves as long as there is a slave ; you are bound as long as others 
are bound. According to the apostolic injunction, every man is in 
fetters as long as one man is fettered. 

I congratulate you this morning. On my return from Europe, 
after an absence of a few months, I looked for growth, but I hardly 



54 THIRTIETH ANNIVERSART OF THE 

knew where were the buds and where the branches. I find the buds 
branches, and on the branches fruit. It is as if, in the month of 
May, one should be carried a month to sea, not knowing he had been 
gone an hour ; when he returns, he finds himself in the bosom of Sum- 
mer. Things are germinating, and every where springing into mar- 
vellous growth and fruitfulness. 

The last time I was in Philadelphia, I was escorted into the Hall 
between files of policemen, who defended my right of speech by the 
municipal power of the city. Last night, it was not necessary to 
have policemen. I find myself accepted now by the men who, three 
years ago, would not have opened their doors to me, nor uttered my 
name except as an oiFence. They say I have changed. Very well ; 
let it be so ; I am content ; I am entirely changed ; I have aban- 
doned my old doctrines ; I have become conservative ; I have 
smoothed ofi" all the hard edges, and rounded all the corners! They 
are steadfast and immovable; they have always been right. Let it 
go so ; I am quite content. I will be considered as having changed 
every week, as much as you please ; only take the principles, only 
work for the slave, and work in good practical earnest, it is very 
little matter what men say of you, where they put you, what they 
call you. It is the cause, and not men, that is important. It 
is the incarnation of God in our time, the reappearing of Christ in 
his own providences, the shaking the foundations of things, that they 
may be moved, which is important. All our personal matters, how- 
ever strenuous the opposition to us may be, are but chaff, which the 
wind should drive awa3\ If now the men of wealth, of intelligence, 
and of standing, in Pennsylvania, are willing to lay one hand on the 
Bible and the other on the charter of their liberties, and say, "Let 
the oppressed go free," they may call themselves Moses and x\aron3 
from the beginning, and I will never say nay to it. 

So, too, in New York, and so in Boston ; the leaven is working. 
Let us, then, give thanks to God ; thanks for the past, that we were 
permitted to work in it; thanks that we are permitted to live to see 
the consummation which we expected to see over pearly battlements, 
but now shall see in the land of the living. 

During my visit to England, it was my privilege to address, in 
various places, very large audiences; and I never made mention 
of the nnmes of any of those whom you most revere and love, without 
calling down the wildest demonstrations of popular enthusiasm. I 
never mentioned the name of Mr. Phillips, or Mr. Garrison, that it 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 65 

did not call forth a storm of a])probation. It pleased me to know 
that those who were least favored in our country were so well known 
in England. And the name of President Lincoln was never pro- 
nounced without a torrent of approbation, even in the stormiest meet- 
ings. It is true that a man is not without honor save in his own 
country ; and I felt that I had never had before me, in an audience 
here, such an appreciation of the names of our early and faithful 
laborers in this cause as there was in that remote country, among 
comparative strangers. 

I am thankful for the privilege of looking on so many noble and 
revered faces, and so many young and enthusiastic persons, united 
together by so sacred a bond as that which unites you. I feel, not 
that I agree with you in every thing, but that I aai heart and soul 
■with you in the main end. Toward that end, we may take different 
paths, very likely, but when we come together at the end, we shall 
all be there. It is the end that crowns the beffinning, rather than 
the beginning the end. I therefore feel that I am honored in being 
permitted to stand before you this morning, to utter these few words 
of sympathy and of greeting. Your cause is dear to you — just as 
dear to me. Your names, honored among yourselves, will never lack 
some wreaths, if I may be permitted to pluck any to place upon them. 
I thank God that he called you into existence. An uncanonical 
Church you are, a Church without ordination, but in my judgment, a 
Chuich of the very best and most apostolic kind, held together by 
the cohesion of a rule of faith, and an interior principle. Your ordi- 
nances are few and simple, but mighty through God. Your officers 
are not exactly elected. Whoever has the gifts, and the inspiration 
behind those gifts, he is your teacher and your leader. That is the 
truest form of the Church. I stand here in the midst of a part of 
God's great spiritual, earthly Church, happy to be in your midst, 
asking the privilege to call myself a brother only, asking the privi- 
lege of calling you that are advanced in years fathers and mothers, 
and asking the privilege also to work according to the light that is 
given me, and where I differ from you, of having still your confidence 
that I mean right. I will never work against you, as I never have. 
I will work with you as far as you will let me; and we shall all be 
supervised by a higher Love and a diviner Wisdom, and where mis- 
takes are made, they will, after all, work together for the good cause. 
We shall meet, if not again on earth, in that land where no struggles 
are needed, where we shall rejoice and give thanks to Him who called, 
aud guided, a,rid crowned us with victory. 



56 THIRTIETH ANNIVEKSART OF THE 

On motion, by Rev. Samuel May, Jr., a Committee was appointed 
to superintend the publication of the Proceedings of this Third Dec- 
ade Meeting, with authority to incorporate therewith such docu- 
ments as should seem to them appropriate. The Committee was 
subsequently named, as follows : William Lloyd GtArrison, Mary 
Grew, Oliver Johnson, Samuel May, Jr., John T. Sargent. 

On motion of Stephen S. Foster, in view of the large number of 
persons who desired to address the meeting, speakers were requested 
not to occupy the floor more than fifteen minutes at a time ; and the 
President was requested to remind each speaker when his time should 
have expired. 

Orson S. Murray, of Ohio, one of the signers of the Declaration 
of Sentiments, occupied fifteen minutes in reading part of a series of 
resolution.-!, written by himself, upon which he said he neither asked 
nor deprecated the action of the meeting. No action was taken upon 
them. 

On motion of Edward M. Davis, the Honorable Henry Wilson, 
United States Senator from Massachusetts, was invited to take a seat 
upon the platform. He was greeted, as he did so, with hearty ap- 
plause. 

A Committee on Finance was appointed as follows: James N. 
BuFFUM, Thomas Garrktt, Mahlon B. Linton, Abby Kimber, 
Aaron M. Powell, Wendell P. Garrison. 

SPEECH or STEPHEN S. FOSTER. 

It gives me great pleasure, fellow-citizens, to be with you on this 
occasion. It is one of the most interesting of the whole period of my 
life. I love to look into the faces bf my old and early anti-slavery 
friends. I have 'new friends, but they are not like the old friends, 
the friends of my youth and early manhood. There is no gratifica- 
tion I ever received, or ever expect to receive in this life, so great as 
that of meeting those with whom I have stood shoulder to shoulder 
thi'ough many a hard fought battle in this and other pro-slavery 
States of this Union. And yet the pleasure of this meeting is marred 
by one consideration ; and that is, that there are two or three million 
of our countrymen jf^et clanking their heavy chains. While we are 
happy, they are sad and sorrowful. While we are free, and protected 
by the government of our country, they are still struggling in chains! 
Their fate is yet all uncertain. Their sky of hope is brightening 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY, 57 

They are sustained bj the faint promises of hope ; but still all is un- 
certain. 

I have feared, since I have been with jou upon tliis occasion, that 
we have become over-confident in regard to the success of the move- 
ment with which we have so long stood identified. The conviction 
seems to have become fixed, in the mind of every man in the ranks 
of the Anti-Slavery Society, tl^it this war is the end of slavery, that 
we have already given it its death-blow. But so thought the friends 
of freedom in the Revolutionary War. They settled down in the 
confident belief that they had given the system a fatal stab, and that 
they should live to see it quickly pass away ; and therefore they 
thought it unnecessary to incorporate in the Constitution of the 
country a provision for ever prohibiting the toleration of slavery. 
How much more are we secure now of the abolition of slavery, upon 
the heels of the war, than were our revolutionary fathers in their 
day? Is the country in a better state upon the question of Jiuman 
liberty than it was then? Are we more deeply penetrated by a 
sense of the sinfulness of slavery than were our fathers ? [A Voice — 
" Yes."] Why, then, are slaves dragged from the capital of your 
country back to their masters in the loyal States of this Union ? 
Why is Abraham Lincoln, to-day, holding the military and naval 
power of this land, and shaking it in the very teeth of the slaves of 
the loyal States of this Union, telling thera that if they rise and 
strike for freedom, they shall be crushed with the iron hand ? [" He 
is n't doing it."] Not doing it? Has not he sworn, according to his 
own idea, to maintain slavery in the loyal States ? [" Exactly the 
contrary."] Has not Hon. B. Gratz Brown told you that the peo- 
ple of Missouri would have abolished slavery but for Federal inter- 
ference? Where is that sacred regard for constitutional obligation 
which for years was talked of on this platform ? Has Mr. Lincoln 
said to his agents, " In case the slaves strike for freedom in the loyal 
States, join them against their loyal masters " ? Has the military 
protection of the slave system in the loyal States been withdrawn? 

We assume too much, far more than our political friends assume 
in this matter. The Hon. Senator from Massachusetts on my left 
(Hon. Henky Wilson) would tell you, if you were to ask his opin- 
ion, that Abraham Lincoln to-day holds himself constitutionally 
bound to maintain the institution of slavery in every loyal State of 
this Union, as he was in all the States prior to the rebellion ; and to 
the execution of the Fugitive Slave Law in the District of Columbia? 
8 



58 THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 

to-day, as much as ten years ago. The Bench of that District, every 
member of which was appointed by Aisraiiam Lincoln, has allowed 
slave after slave to be arrested in the District of Columbia, and sent 
into slavery in the State of Maryland. 

It seems to me that, in this state of the case, we have no reason to 
be very confident. If the nation is anti-slavery, why does it not say 
so ■? In the name of common sense, when the whole civilized world 
would applaud the declaration, why do they not say, by some author- 
itative act, that there shall be no slave on American soil henceforth ? 
Nothing would be easier, nothing better for our cause ; nothing would 
save so much the shedding of human blood as that simple declara- 
tion. How can you say the nation wants it done, when the nation 
will not do it ? The President has set free a portion of the slaves — 
he has abolished slavery nowhere. Where he had not power to give 
liberty to the slaves in fact, he gave them liberty by law. Where 
he had power to give them liberty in fact, he did not give them lib- 
erty by law. He thus shamefully marred that act, which, if properly 
done, and placed upon moral grounds, would have sent his name down 
to posterity beside the name of William Lloyd Gtarkison. But he 
has declared, from beginning to end, that he has emancipated slaves, 
in DO single instance, because he had any regard for them, but 
always out of regard for the white man, and for the perpetuity of 
the Federal Government. I would not trust my own, I would not 
trust anybody's liberty in the hands of such a Government. Never, 
until I hear the Government of the United States pronounce authori- 
tatively in all its departments, executive, legislative, judicial, the fiat 
which dooms slavery to everlasting perdition, will I lay off my armor. 
Lay off yours if you are tired of fighting, if you are weary and care- 
worn, and feel that you cannot longer carry on the warfare ; but I 
am a veteran soldier ; I am here to-day to reenlist for the war ; and, 
God being my helper, not one particle of my armor will I lay aside 
until the last fetter is broken. Not one jot or tittle of my stern de- 
mand for justice will I abate until the nation, as a nation, declares 
that slavery is for ever abolished in this country. (Applause.) 

I feel that I ought to speak more strongly to-day than ever before, 
because the nation is more guilty to-day than ever before. Accord- 
. iog to their interpretation of the Constitution, never had the nation, 
until recently, the constitutional power to abolish slavery. To-day it 
has it, and is therefore the more guilty for not doing it. Never be- 
fore was the question put directly to the nation, whether it should 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 59 

set free the slaves, and thereby promote universal liberty and end 
this war, or whether it should hold the slaves still longer, and cause 
the shetlding of oceans more of human blood ; for all admit that a 
proclamation of freedom would help the loyal cause, and bring the 
war the quicker to a close. There is a double guilt resting upon 
this Administration ; first, for holding the slave in his chains, and 
secondly, for taking your sons and mine, tearing them away from the 
peaceful pursuits of home life, to go down to the South and meet the 
bristling bayonets of Southern rebels. The war might be ended at 
once by an act of justice. The nation refuses to perform that duty, 
but chooses rather to murder your sons and mine, and to prolong the 
bloody strife. The guilt of the nation accumulates every hour that 
we hold a slave in his chains. God is demanding every day that the 
oppressed shall go free; and the Government says, "No, we will try 
a little longer ; we will not give up yet ; we will have more plagues 
yet before we will let the people go." And we shall have them. 
Proclaim emancipation to the slaves, to the men whom God appoints 
as the true soldiers of this land ; then, if they fail to do the work, I 
will volunteer, non-resistant as I am ; and I will go down to Caro- 
lina, and face the rebel armies ; with the sword of the spirit, however, 
and not with the sword of steel. I will lead your armies, if you want 
them led, unarmed. I will not shrink from my share of the danger. 
Place me between you and the enemy. Only let me have an army 
of Liberators, and that is all I ask. I will do all in my power to 
swell the ranks of the Union army, if you will make the war a war 
for freedom ; but so long as, by the Constitution and the laws of the 
country, the Executive is compelled to use the army to put down an 
insurrection in any loyal State of this Union, God forbid that I 
should enlist, or invite any body else to enlist! For one, God being 
my helper, I shall go forward, whoever may falter. 

SPEECH OF CHARLES C. BURLEirxH. 

I doubt not that I speak the sentiment of every friend of our cause 
when I say, that we are all determined to go forward, and not to falter 
until the last fetter is struck from the limbs of the last slave. (Ap- 
plause.) It seems to me that the error of our friend Foster is in 
assuming that his position is actually different from ours upon this 
point. We agree with him in purpose, and we agree with him mainly 
in regard to the propositions which he has stated, but dissent from 



60 THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 

some of the inferences which he draws. When he would exhort us 
not to be over-confident, we would say araen. It is a danger which 
should always be guarded against. But when he holds up to us, as 
a reason why we should not be over-confident, what all impartial ob- 
servers will regard as an exaggerated and disjointed view of the facts 
of the case, rendering the picture darker than the truth, and making 
it, therefore, exert a discouraging rather than an encouraging in- 
fluence, we dissent from the course which he pursues, and doubt the 
wisdom of his recommendation. We say, " Do not despair," as well 
as " Do not be over-confident." We say. Do not regard the difficul- 
ties more than they are, nor the progress made less than it is ; lest 
the effect should be to deter some from further effort, from the appre- 
hension that it is altogether in vain that we labor. Looking back 
upon a thirty years' struggle of Abolitionists, who have wielded the 
weapons of truth, the sword of the spirit, sharper than the two-edged 
steel, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of 
the joints and marrow, what would they say, if they were to be told 
that we are in a worse position than when we began ; that we have 
not advanced towards the attainment of our great object, but on the 
contrary have receded, and are further from the end than at the period 
immediately following the Revolution ? Far, very far from that is 
the truth. We are far in advance of the revolutionary period. In 
the first place, accepting the premises upon which all moral enter- 
prises proceed, we should infer that we must have advanced, from the 
very fact that a handful of faithful men have been laboring for thirty 
years past, by argument, appeal, persuasion, remonstrance — all the 
weapons of the moral armory — earnestly and diligently. But what 
is the fact? Just after the revolutionary period, the best and most 
clear-sichted anti-slavery men of the country would not have dared 
to advocate immediate emancipation, would not have dared to in- 
scribe upon their banner immediate and unconditional freedom to the 
bondman. Is it nothing that we have converted the very best intel- 
lect of the country to that doctrine? Is it nothing that, whereas not 
even the wivsest and most just of our fathers imagined it to be practi- 
cable, it is now conceded on all hands to be demonstrated as the best 
course, except by those who are determined to uphold slavery, and 
the continually diminishing class of conservative politicians, who 
have been left in the dark because, groping by candle-light before 
the sun rose, they turned their backs upon the growing dawn, and 
have forgotten that it is mid-noon ? 



AMERICAN ANTT-PL.WKRT SOCIETT. 61 

Moreover, at the time immediately succeeding the revolutionary 
period, even those who called themselves anti-slavery men recognized, 
not the absolute justice of slavery, it may be, but a certain sort of 
richt in the masters still to retain their slaves. I wish that I could 
have foreseen the course of this argument, that I might have slipped 
into my pocket a pamphlet containing the proceedings of the Aboli- 
tion Societies of the period immediately following the Revolutionary 
■war ; for I would have compared their doings with those of this gath- 
ering to-day, and then asked you, if such a handful of the choice men 
of that day dared to go no further than they did, and if to-day our 
Declaration of Sentiments can receive the applause of this assembly, 
which is only the representative of multitudes of people all over the 
land, have we made no progress? (Applause.) 

Our friend alludes to the fact that the (jrovernment still sus- 
tains slavery in the loyal States. True ; and the more shame to the 
Government. Every word he says against the pro-slavery position of 
this Government, I heartily respond to ; but how could he have had 
an opportunity to find fault with the Government for not making a 
clean cut, if it had not made a jagged one? The Government in the 
olden time never abolished slavery in the District of Columbia, 
never issued a proclamation of freedom to more than three million 
slaves, never recognized the black man in any of its measures, even 
so far as Abraham Lincoln and William H. Seward and Thurlow 
Weed have already done. He has been recognized as a citizen, in 
defiance of the Dred Scott opinion, by the Attorney-General of the 
United States. Yes, we have official authority, from a Missourian 
Attorney-General, for the doctrine that the black man is a citizen of 
the country. 

We have been told of the eiforts of the Government against the 
Emancipationists of Missouri. Then, I say, the more shame to the 
Government for that. But at the time just after the Revolution, 
there could have been no act of interference needed by the Federal 
Government to prevent the abolition of slavery in any Slave State of 
the Union. Let me also, in justice to the man whom I have criti- 
cised, perhaps as freely as my friend Foster, remind you that if he 
went against the Radicals in Missouri, he went in favor of the Rad- 
icals in Maryland. (Applause.) We have a man at the head of the 
Government who is not altosiether according to mv taste, or in accord- 
ance with my feeling or my policy; but let us do him justice all the 
more assiduously, because we do not like his position. 



62 THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 

I hold, then, that we have reason to be encouraged. The very 
ground we take is that of our friend Foster, that we will not give up 
until the work is accomplished; but we will labor all the more earn- 
estly, and with all the more energy, because we see the signs around 
us of the progress we are making. We see the black man recognized 
among the defenders of the country, and see him regarded as a citi- 
zen, allowed as a citizen to appropriate the lands of the West, as well 
as to defend his newly-acquired liberty. Even States which we 
regarded as incorrigible Slave States — even Border-Ruffian Missouri 
— tread upon the very verge of emancipation, and at the nest step 
are likely to go over. Shall we not thank God and take courage, 
not laying down our arms as if the victory were won, but shouting 
with all the more vigor, in the language of the great Captain of 
Scotland, when he saw the wavering of the foe : 

" Press on, brave sons of Innisgail, 
The foe is fainting fast, 
One blow for children and for wife. 
For Scotland, liberty, and life ! 
The battle cannot last." 

SPEECH OF AARON M. POWELL. 

Instead of the third meeting of this kind which is celebrated by 
many who are present, it is the first one in my own experience. But 
it is to me as valuable, I apprehend, in my own appreciation, for the 
length of time in which I have been familiar with this movement, as 
to you who have labored longer, and in the more trying and darker 
periods of the struggle. I want to stand here a moment this morn- 
ing, and to express personally my own sense of gratitude for having 
been permitted, even for ten years, to share somewhat in this contest. 
I cannot think even of the shorter period over which my own mind 
can pass in review, without the deepest gratitude in my own heart at 
having been permitted to labor in the Anti-Slavery cause, in that 
hour when we were obliged to walk by faith wholly, and not by sight 
occasionally. It is, I think, an occasion for the special gratitude of 
every Abolitionist to have been permitted to live in a time such as 
we have passed through, and such as we see at the present hour. I 
do not wish to dwell upon the past, or to indulge in any of the more 
recent reminiscences. I share the feeling which has been expressed 
this morning, that we are in the midst of great responsibilities. I 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLATKRY SOCIETY. 63 

think that we are surrounded by new and glorious opportunities for 
completing our labor. But the completion of it yet remains to be 
done. I am glad to stand here with the older members of the Amer- 
ican Anti-Slavery Society, on this Thirtieth Anniversary, and to see 
in all the evidences of this hour, war-time as it is, the glorious moral 
method, which has been its method, vindicated as it is. We stand 
to-day vindicated in the wisdom of our position, and with every en- 
couragement still to stand upon the platform of absolute right and 
impartial justice, as the only correct basis of effort in grappling suc- 
cessfully with oppression. As the New York Tribune of yesterday 
very truthfully remarked, there may be a connection between the 
meeting here thirty years ago, and the Presidential administration of 
this period. So it remains as true to-day, that if we adhere to this 
platform of absolute right and impartial justice, we shall see this 
work carried on in a new Union in the future, which shall be a true 
Union, dedicated to impartial liberty. 

But, my friends, if by any mistaken counsel, which I do not 
believe is to prevail, if by any lack of conscience, which I trust there 
may not be, that type of politicians should prevail, represented, not 
by the Hon. Senator upon our platform, but by the editor of the New 
York Times, there will be no Union such as we hope for. But I 
believe that the Henry J. Raymond school of politicians will not 
prevail, if there can be still impartial criticism of leading public 
men and public measures, in the light of impartial justice and ab- 
solute right. I mention the New York Times, because, speaking for 
the body of so-called Conservative Republicans, after Grant's victory, 
which seemed to render it more certain that the North was to tri- 
umph, that paper says, in a column and a half editorial, that "mas- 
terly inactivity " is the policy now which should be pursued in regard 
to slavery. If that political counsel prevails, it is not statesman- 
ship — it is a sham ; it is selfishness under the name of conservatism. 
If that doctrine be allowed to prevail, then these battles, with tenfold 
increased horror, must in the future be fought over again. But if 
the American Anti-Slavery Society shall continue its labor earnestly 
and faithfully unto the end, then shall the line of political conduct 
based on the right find a moral support among the people which will 
Enable them to go forward, and reconstruct the Union upon the basis 
of liberty for all men throughout the land. I stand here this brief 
moment, then, that I may utter an exhortation to you who are the 
immediate members and friends of this Society, to continue your 



6-i THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 

efforts, recognizing the new opportunities, and remembering our in- 
creased responbibility to make one last, best effort for the complete 
overthrow of the common enemy of the country, human slavery. If 
there is that fidelity which there ought to be; if there is an appreci- 
ation of the importance and significance of this hour, this transition 
period, there will be engrafted into the Constitution of the country the 
simple amendment, when slavery has been abolished by a general 
emancipation act, that there shall he neither slavery nor involuntary 
servitude in any State or Territory of this Union, as explicit as the 
ancient prohibition in the Territories of the Northwest. 

At the outset of this rebellion, there was assembled at Washington 
a Peace Congress, supposed to contain the wisdom and statesmanship 
of the countr}'^, outside the Halls of Congress. And what was 
that wisdom in that hour? How was it proposed that- we should 
avert this great calamity of national war ? Charles Francis Adams, 
to the disgrace of that noble name, offered a resolution proposing an 
amendment to the Constitution — an amendment in the interest of 
slavery. And now, with three hundred thousand graves between us 
and slavery, with the industry and economy of the country disar- 
ranged, and with mourning and lamentation in every household in 
the land, in Heaven's name, may we not end this conflict by amend- 
ing the Constitution, so that it may be as explicitly in the interest of 
liberty as in the beginning it was proposed to make it in the interest 
of slavery? (Applause.) 

SPEECH OF LUCRETIA MOTT. 

When I see these young men and strong coming forward with ac- 
kriowledgments of their indebtedness to the cause, and rejoicing that 
they have been among its later advocates; and when I look around 
upon this platform, and see here a Lucy Stone, an Euzabeth Jones, 
and a Theodore Tilton, all laboring so effectively in the field, I feel 
that we older ones may indeed retire, and thank God that he who has 
blessed us all our lives long is now blessing the lads ; for there is 
surely no greater joy than to see these children walking in the anti- 
slavery path. 

I feared yesterday that we were dwelling too much upon the past. 
We were so deeply interested in the earliest movements of this Anti- 
Slavery Society, that we did not go back, except by mere incidental 
mention, to Benjamin Lay and Ralph Sangekford, who dwelt in 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETr. 65 

eaves and dens of the earth, of whom the world was not worthy, to 
Elias Hick?, Tuomas Clarkson, and all those earlier laborers; we 
did not go back as far as that. 1 feared, however, that we were not 
enough leaving the things that were behind, and pressing forward to- 
ward those that were before. Although I did not entirely agree 
with our friend Foster, and was glad that he was answered as he 
was — for I have so large Hope that 1 always take encouraging 
views of things when I can — yet I felt that there were duties to 
be performed in our case in regard to freedmen as well as in regard 
to those still held as slaves in our land. It is of little consequence 
to us now what we have suffered in the past, what obloquy, reproach 
and contumely we have endured in our religious societies, and in 
other relations in society. We might, as women, dwell somewhat 
upon our own restrictions, as connected with this Anti-Slavery move- 
ment. When persons interested in the cause were invited to send 
delegates to the London Convention of 1840, and some of those del- 
egates were women, it was found out in time for them to send forth 
a note declaring that women were not included in the term "persons," 
but only men ; and therefore, when we arrived in London, we were 
excluded from the platform. Yet, let me say, in justice to the Abo- 
litionists there, that we were treated with all courtesy, and with a 
good deal of flattery in lieu of our rights. But all those things we 
may pass by. 

Last evening, when we were listening, some of us, to the eloquent 
and earnest appeals made by Henry Ward Beecher, we saw in the 
assemblage some who, a few years ago, rushed from their seats in the 
church, because they could not bear to hear William Furness speak 
so plainly on the subject of slavery, and who warned friends from 
abroad that they must not come to our houses because we were Abo- 
litionists. When Madame Pulsky and her friends came, and were 
asked to go with me on a visit to the Penitentiary, and the carriage 
was at the door, word came that they were discouraged from coming, 
because we were Abolitionists ! When I see those men coming for- 
ward now, and joining in the applause for the thorough anti-slavery 
sentiments of Henry Ward Beecher and others, so far from blam- 
ing them, or setting them at nought, I would rather welcome them 
at this eleventh hour, and I hope they may receive their full penny, 
if they work diligently to the end. I have felt sometimes almost, 
Avith the Apostle, willing to be accursed of my brethren for this 
cause's sake ; but willing afterwards, when they come forward and 
9 



66 THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THB 

mingle with us, to give them the right hand and invite them upon 
the pUitform, and glad to hear them, if they have any thing to say 
on the right side. When I sav these things last evening, I remem- 
bered the remark of Ray Potter, one of the signers of the Declar- 
ation, who, in a speech in Rhode Island, said that Abolitionists 'had 
the great Temple of Liberty to rear, and must do all the rough and 
hard work ; but when it was near the top, he said, then would come 
forth people to lay their little fingers upon it, and say, " We have got 
it up ! " I could not but remember this last evening, and also a few 
weeks ago, when I rejoiced to see the crowds listening to the words 
that proceeded out of the mouths of Phillips Brooks and others 
upon this very platform. When I heard some of the members of the 
Preedmen's Association, in this meeting, talking about the objections 
that were met and answered again and again by the Abolitionists 
years ago, of the duties connected with the liberation of the slave 
which we must perform, I felt that, after all, we were but unprofita- 
ble servants, and had not done as we ought to have done in regai'd to 
doing away with that deep-rooted prejudice which is the concomitant 
of slavery, and which we know can never be removed while slavery 
exists. Some of us women can perhaps more fully sympathize with 
the slave, because the prejudice against him is somewhat akin to that 
against our sex ; and we ought to have been more faithful than we 
have been, so that when we hear the words applied to us, " Come, ye 
blessed of my Father," we might be ready to ask, "When saw we 
thee an hungered, or athirst, or in prison, and ministered unto thee? " 
It seems to me, therefore, as has been recommended here to-day, that 
we should keep on our armor. It may not be necessary to continue 
our operations in precisely the same way. But it will be necessary 
to multiply our periodicals, and scatter them, as we have done here- 
tofore, with good effect. Wiien our friends were talking of what was 
done, and how we were received in the beginning, and when Church 
and State were, as our friend Garrison showed so clearly, arrayed 
against us, I remembered that then, just as in olden times, the com- 
mon people heard us gladly. In truth, the original good heart of the 
people — excuse my theology — cannot resist the wisdom and the 
power with which Truth speaks to their understanding ; and there- 
fore it was that we were gladly received among them. Many 
have come and made their acknowledgments, that when we were 
mobbed, when Pennsylvania Hall was burned, they were in the 
wrong, they were in the mob ; but now they say, " Whereas I was 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 67 

blind, now I see, and I am willing now to be faithful to what I see." 
Let us welcome them, hail thera in their coming, and gladly receive 
them. And with all these coadjutors, the work will go on, emanci- 
pation will be proclaimed, and we may be just as confident and ear- 
nest as we were before our friend Foster reproved us. I think we 
may rejoice and take courage. I like a little addition to the rejoic- 
ing of good old Simeon : " Now lettest thou thy servant depart in 
peace, for mine eyes have seen of thj? salvation ; " for the whole sal- 
vation has not come, but we have seen of the salvation. 

SPEECH OF REV. SAMUEL MAY, JR. 

Although I cannot claim to be one of the original members of this 
Society, I am happy to look back upon twenty-five years of connec- 
tion with it, and upon such services as 1 have been able to render it. 
I should be sorry, therefore, to go away from Philadelphia without 
uttering one word in behalf of our good cause. Let me first reas- 
sure our good friend, S. S. Foster, on the subject of our future war- 
fare upon slavery, as I have been ia a position to know something of 
the minds of the difi'erent members of this Society. The number 
of those who believe that our work is done, or who entertain the 
least thought of laying down their arms, is so exceedingly small 
that they can be counted on the fingers of a single hand. Neither 
this Society, nor any one of its Committees, has made any announce- 
ment afi"ording ground for the least shadow of a suspicion that we mean 
to disband, or cease from our work, while a single slave treads the 
soil of our native land. There is no such purpose. We have known 
too much of the privilege and blessing of being enlisted in this good 
cause ever to desert it while a single slave clanks his chains. I 
think, too, we understand our duty too well for this. I know there 
are a few, a very few, who think we may cease our associated labors. 
I know of one eminent lady who thinks so. She is not with us to- 
day. She has ceased to cooperate with our Executive Committee, of 
which she was so long a member. She thinks that our work, as an 
associated body, is at an end ; and it is not for us to condemn her for 
that opinion. There is no desertion of the Anti-Slavery cause on 
the part of Maria W. Chapman, whose name I mention, because it 
ought to be named in this Society with respect and honor. If she 
withdraws from us before we think our work is done, let us remember 
how much earlier than most of us she enlisted in its ranks; how 



68 THIETIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 

early her clear foresight saw the danger ; how eloquent were her pen 
and her voice in dispelling the cloud of darkness which overshadowed 
the land ; how clear was her faith ; how brave was her heart. And 
if she now leaves the Society (not, I am sure, the anti-slavery work) 
sooner than we think she should do, may we not suppose there may 
be given to her now a foresight of the future better and clearer than 
ours, such as she had thirty years ago, when she was among the first 
to take up the great cause, and when, with brave and unflinching 
heart, she faced that Boston mob and all its terrors ? We can have 
no blame for such a servant of the cause as that. Nevertheless, ad- 
hering to our own convictions of duty, nearly every other member of 
the Society, and of its Committees and ofl&cers, maintains his ground. 
So I think our friend Foster need not be troubled. 

As we look back through the last thirty years, perhaps the most 
painful object in our survey is the opposition which the Anti-Slavery 
cause has had to encounter from the churches of the land. With 
here and there an exception, the great body of religionists, who took 
upon themselves the name of Christ, and dared to organize in the 
name of him who ever went out to the lowliest and humblest and 
most oppressed of men, threw themselves in the way of our Society 
and its object. We will not stop to utter words of reproach to-day. 
The Church could not see the palpable truth that Anti-Slavery was the 
"Grospel for the day." It proved itself a blind leader of blind followers. 
And what a judge and divider over it did the Anti-Slavery cause be- 
come ! Powerful ecclesiastical bodies and mighty religious associations 
fell asunder at its touch, and arrayed themselves in opposing ranks. 
The Church fell upon this great rock of Truth and Justice, instead 
of building upon it, and was broken ! But there were winnowed out 
of every sect those that knew this cause was Christ's own cause in 
the land. Many, misled and deceived by false-hearted leaders, enter- 
tained the belief that anti-slavery was infidelity. I wish to express, 
therefore, the great satisfaction I felt this morning, when that elo- 
quent speaker, Henry Ward Beecher, came among us in his kind, 
courteous, and fraternal spirit, and, from his position as an accredited 
preacher of the Christian religion, recognized upon this platform the 
great services this Society has "rendered to patriotism, to religion, 
and to humanity." That, in my mind, is a sufficient ofi"set to columns 
and pages of scurrilous denunciation. Not that we needed any such 
testimony from Mr. Beecher or any body else ; not that it makes 
any difi'erence to us what he or any one else says upon that point; 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLATERY SOCIETY, 69 

but it neutralizes the objurgations and false assertions of so many in 
the clerical profession. We know on what foundation we have built. 
We need not the tes^timony, although we rejoice in it. And we are 
glad to-day to recognize, amidst other changes, some change in the 
churches and religious bodies of the land. No longer content with 
sending the Grospel to distant lands, they are beginning to recognize 
the poor, the needy, and the ignorant freed slaves of our own land. 
The Christian bodies of to-day which receive the most hearty sympa- 
thy are those that are ministering to the spiritual and physical wants 
of the freed slaves of the country. To-day, the Sanitary Commis- 
sion, and that other body which, not satisfied with the simple title of 
Sanitary Commission, takes upon itself the name of Christian Com- 
mission, go forward to bless the suffering soldier and the ignorant 
slave, to recognize the freedom of the colored man, and to meet him 
in the army, on the plantation, or in the hospital, with Christian 
kindness, instruction, and supplies. This is now recognized as emi- 
nently Christian work by the churches; and herein may we be glad. 
Upon one other point of my friend Foster's remarks, I wish to say 
a single word. Although I have no apologies to offer for what has 
been wrong, timid, slow, doubting, in Mr. Lincoln's position or pol- 
icy, yet, with Mr. Burleigh, I say, let us do justice ; and when Mr. 
Foster said that the President had issued his great Proclamation 
with an entire disregard and indifference for the rights of the slave 
or the colored man, and only for the benefit of the white man, it 
seems to me that he did the President great injustice. (Applause.) 
Did not Mr. Lincoln expressly say that he " sincerely believed " that 
great measure " to be an act of justice " ; and did he not, upon this 
very ground, " invoke " for it " the considerate judgment of mankind 
and the gracious favor of Almighty God "? Does not all that is best 
in the land respond to it as such, and is it not upon that basis that we 
all feel it most secure ? 

Mr. Foster. Did not the President declare to the civilized world 
that he would prefer to put down this rebellion without disturbing 
the power of slavery? 

Mr. May. I think there was nothing about " preference," but 
that he was determined to put down the rebellion ; and, as President 
of the United States, he was bound so to act. 

Henry C. Wright. Has the President of the United States, as 
President, any right to free a single slave, purely as a matter of jus- 



70 THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 

tice, or for his good ? His only power, as President of the United 
States, is to free the slave as a military necessity. (Applause.) 

The President. The nest speaker is one who has devoted a large 
portion of her life, since she came to years of intelligence, to the 
cause of the slave. There is no one, in the Old World or the New, 
who has labored more devotedly, more self-sacrificingly, or more 
wholly given all that she is and all that she has, to be put upon the 
altar of bleeding humanity, than Abby Kellet Foster. 

SPEECH OF ABBY KELLEY FOSTER. 

I agree with almost every thing that has been said here this morn- 
ing in relation to the present aspects of our cause and our present 
duty. Yet there is one thing that remains for us to be reminded of. 
Although we all feel and know that, of necessity, there must have 
been an immense change in the public sentiment, in consequence of 
the action of this Anti-Slavery Society, yet we should not be too con- 
fident as to the character of the wonderful change since the war com- 
menced. Although brought up in the Orthodox Church, I do not 
believe exactly in the doctrine of instantaneous conversion ; but I 
believe in the fall from grace. I want to remind you that we had 
labored for twenty-seven years previous to the terrible mobs of 1860. 
Do we remember the Fall of 1860 and the Winter of 1860 and '61 ? 
Do we remember that never was a more bloodthirsty mob organized 
in the city of Boston than was organized in the Fall of 1860 ? 

Charles C. Burleigh. When the Devil came down in great 
wrath, because he knew he had but a short time. 

Mrs. Foster. Let us see whether he knew he had but a short 
time. Have we forgotten that bloodthirsty spirit which went from 
Boston, all along through Albany, on the line of the Central Rail- 
road, through the entire West ; which came down here into Pennsyl- 
vania, and pervaded every part of the North — the spirit of determi- 
nation that free speech should utterly be crushed out? — a spirit that 
responded to what was proposed by the Peace Convention at Wash- 
ington, viz : that we should give slavery free course to run and be 
glorified through this country ; that, notwithstanding our twenty- 
seven years of anti-slavery agitation, free speech should be crushed, 
as we knew it must be, if those peace resolutions had been accepted 
by the South. If they had been, we should truly have been crushed 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 71 

out, as we believed, at that period. Trul}' would free speech have 
been trampled under foot, and slavery would have been triumphant, 
but for the fact that the slaveholders would not accept the offer. 
No thanks to the governing masses of the North that that consum- 
mation of diabolism did not succeed. No, no. Did Slavery think it 
had but a short time to live? No, it was blind. Sin is always 
blind. The North did not dream it; politicians did not dream it. 
They believed that, notwithstanding the flood of light, they could 
crush us all down, and that Slavery could have a longer lease of life, 
not for its own sake, but to promote what they believed to be their 
pecuniary and political well-being. 

x\nd now, whence comes this sudden change? A Pentecost, for- 
sooth ! Is it by the pouring out of the Holy Ghost, or the pouring 
out of human blood? Is it because the great mass of the people 
have come to believe, and have received grace into their hearts? 
God knows I do not willingly stand here to bring scorn, opposition, 
contempt or hatred upon those who have turned right-about-face, 
when I charge that it is not from the highest but from the lowest 
motives, and that therefore it is not from motives upon which we can 
rely, and which should make us jubilant. They have taken this 
course, as every body knows — the Government takes it and the com- 
mercial man takes it — because it is their only safety. Senator 
Wilson knows that the Government proposed, and the Secretary of 
State issued letters of instruction to all our ministers plenipotentiary 
abroad, declaring that the rebellion would be put down without 
changing the status of an individual. It was the intention and 
determination to do so. We have not Secretary Seward to thank, 
we have not President Lincoln to thank, we have not the Govern- 
ment of the United States to thank, we have not the commercial 
men nor the churches to thank ; but w^ have Jeff Davis and the 
terrible persistency of the rebels to thank, that there has been this 
change of conduct in the North. It was a matter of military ne- 
cessity, and therefore we have it. And having been induced by mil- 
itary necessity, for the sake of self-preservation, we cannot rely upon 
it. It has been said by a leading paper, that if the rebels should 
lay down their arms to-day. Secretary Sewakd — although his Get- 
tysburg speech differed somewhat from his Auburn speech, because 
his language is the echo of public sentiment always, as far as it goes 
and he can get it, and the one was made before and the other after 
the last election in Pennsylvania, and the other States which were 



72 THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THB 

SO doubtful — would gladly, and the Government would gladly, re- 
ceive them back like the prodigal son, and kill for them the fatted 
calf, and Jeff Davis might be candidate for next President of the 
United States. [A Voice — "Never!"] I trust he never will, 
because I trust that the rebels will still persist. I believe that they 
are given over to a reprobate mind, to believe a lie, and their dam- 
nation is sealed ; and their damnation being sealed, the salvation of 
the country may be secured. 

If in 1860 there could be such a spirit manifested throughout the 
length and breadth of the North, I do not believe that the change 
since that time has been any thing more than the result of selfish- 
ness, and therefore unreliable. It is only by labor, incessant labor, 
in season and out of season, that we can create such a public senti- 
ment as we need ; and we never could have attained it, if success 
had attended the Union arms. I was thankful for Meade's disaster, 
as it is called — his withdrawal. I should be sorry to have too much 
success; we want just little enough to keep up the North to the 
sticking point, until it shall be obliged to go on and abolish slavery 
for its own safety. 

Our friend May says that he can count upon his fingers all those 
who think the mission of the Anti-Slavei-y Society is finished. I 
cannot do that. I know that one State Anti-Slavery Society was 
disbanded, ostensibly for other reasons, but from private conversation 
I know that that Society was abandoned, and their anti-slavery paper 
was put down, because their leading and most self-sacrificing men 
thought that we had done our work in the Anti-Slavery cause. At 
the time that Fort Sumter was attacked, they declared that the mis- 
sion of the Anti-Slavery cause was fulfilled, and that South Carolina 
was now doing the work we had formerly done. Count on my 
fingers ? No ; this house would not contain the numbers. Many 
of them have laid down their lives upon the battle-field. They 
thought the army was doing the work of the Anti-Slavery Society. 
From Pennsylvania, hundreds of young men have gone to the battle- 
field with that conviction ; and I know there are old men and elderly 
women, who have labored for thirty years in the Anti-Slavery cause, 
who have that Conviction, and therefore have laid down their arms. 

Let us not, therefore, be too confident. Do not let us dwell too 
much on what has been done. Napoleon spoke a great truth, when, 
receiving the congratulations of his Generals on the eve of his inva- 
sion of Russia, he said, " I want you to remember that nothing is 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVKRY SOCIETY. 73 

done while any thing remains to be done." St. Helena witnessed the 
truth of that sentiment. ^Nothing is done while any thing remains 
to be done, so far as the death of American slavery is concerned. 
Not that I believe that one iota of moral truth that has ever been 
uttered, any more than one atom of physical matter that has ever 
been created, can be lost. But, so far as the accomplishment of the 
overthrow of slavery is concerned, were success to attend the Federal 
arms to-day, I feel confident that slavery would linger, God knows 
how long ; arid I am willing, therefore, to wait another ten years, if 
need be, in order to insure its destruction now. 

Mr. Garrison. It seems to me that it is not at all our province 
to undertake to determine the motives by which the people are ani- 
mated, who have recently come into sympathy and cooperation with 
us for the abolition of slavery ; that it is not our province to accuse 
them of being hollow and hypocritical. Thank God that a general 
change has taken place, a most miraculous change ! Whoever will 
come up now, and speak a word for freedom, I will hail as a friend 
and a brother, and will leave his motives to God, to whom alone he 
is responsible. 

SPEECH OF SUSAN B. ANTHONY. 

Among the early lessons which I learned upon the abolition plat- 
form was this : That it was our distinctive work to educate the heart 
of the people of this nation into a full recognition of the humanity of 
the black man ; that we were to so educate the people of the North 
that they would refuse to aid the Government in holding the black 
man in chains ; and I suppose that is precisely our work to-day. I 
remember that I had thought fugitive-slave work was very import- 
ant and really anti-slavery ; and I also remember that one of the first 
lessons I had to learn was, that the fugitive slave would be aided by 
common philanthropy and benevolence, and that we, who called our- 
selves Radical Abolitionists, should give our attention, our thought, 
our eflbrts, to the removal of the cause which compelled the fugitive, 
with bleeding feet, to cross the Free States of the North to the 
British domain. It seems to me that the Sanitary Commission work 
the Freedmen's Association, the Freedmen's Educational work, are 
to-day common charity, common benevolence, and the world will 
look after it. Here, in this third decade of the American Auti-Sla- 
10 



74 THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 

ver}' Society, are assembled, from different parts of the Free States, 
the representatives of a little handful of men and vromen over the 
country, who have for these thirty years been working to undermine 
the law of the nation which allows the holding of property in man. 
Precisely this is the work which I think we should abide by at this 
hour, leaving to the grand masses of the world, whose attention is 
now called to the question of liberty — to the question of saving 
this nation, to the question of emancipation even — leaving it to 
them to take care of the freedmen, to take care of the sick and 
wounded upon the battle-field. Let us go on with our primitive and 
fundamental work of removing the laws which allow of the existence 
of slavery. 

That is the specific work to which the Association of which I have 
been a member for the last six months (the Woman's Loyal League) 
has specially devoted itself. We aim to circulate throughout the 
entire North a petition, to be presented to the next Congress, asking 
that body to enact a law of Universal Emancipation. As women, 
we felt that it was especially fitting for us to work in this way, 
because as women we could have no voice as to what should be the 
basis of reconstruction of this government, save through the one right 
which the nation has left to us, the right of petition. Women can 
neither take the ballot nor the bullet to settle this question ; there- 
fore, to us, the right to petition is the one sacred right which we 
ought not to neglect. I appeal to women here to-day to set them- 
selves about this work when they shall return to their homes ; tp cir- 
culate this emancipation petition themselves, and to urge upon their 
neighbors and friends to engage in the work. 

I know there are women here who would like to know something 
of the progress of this petition movement. I am sorry not to be able 
to make an enthusiastic and encouraging report ; but the fact is, that 
wherever our petitions have been sent, from vastly too many places 
the responses have come back, " What do you mean by asking us to 
circulate a petition for emancipation ? Is not the work already 
done? Has not the President proclaimed freedom? Is he not 
doing the work as fast as he can ? " This has been the one great ob- 
stacle, the one great discouragement, which we have had to meet. 
Those who have hitherto occupied the highest places in our estima- 
tion have seemed the most indifferent, and to feel as if this was 
really an unnecessary work. Why should we, who have been at 
work for these long years, endeavoring to move slavery out of the 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 75 

way, when it has been the cause of all the national disasters and na- 
tional strifes and discords which we have had, be afraid, in this last 
struggle, of doing too much ? 

The petitions to-day are being returned rapidly. Day before yes- 
terday, one mail brought four or five thousand signatures. I only 
hope that the people, at this hour, will begin to feel that there is 
need of a public expression. There is an important question to 
come before the next Congress — the question of reconstruction. I 
have no doubt that Senator Wilson himself would say to you this 
morning, if he were to speak, that the signatures of a million of the 
men and women of the North, poured in upon Congress, will do 
much to encourage the members to stand fast by their principles. 
The Congress needs to know that the people, their constituencies, 
stand by them, and will demand of them the strictest faithfulness to 
freedom, and will not abide the slightest compromise of principle. 
It is for us to make them feel this. 

The President. We shall now hear from one who represents a 
phase of this struggle most significant of the success of our move- 
ment. We have burned the bridge behind us, and there is no more 
going backward. We have passed the Rubicon ; and we are going 
on, conquering and to conquer. You may read the utter overthrow 
of slavery in the arming of such a mighty host of the colored popu- 
lation of our country at the present time. I have the pleasure of 
introducing to you Col. Wagner, of Camp William Penn. 

SPEECH OF COL. WAGNER. 

Mr. Chairman, and Ladies and Gentlemen : 

When I received, at the hands of the Chairman of your Business 
Committee, an invitation to attend your meeting, I feared that my 
duties at the camp would not permit me to be present. In coming 
here this morning, I did not expect to make a 'speech, and for two 
reasons : I am not able to make you a speech ; and if I were, I 
would not assume to come here, and preach abolition doctrines to 
those who learned them many years ago. I am not a member of this 
Anti-Slavery Society, unless I may be permitted to style myself a 
believing member — one who has never joined your Association, but 
who has in some little measure contributed towards the abolition of 



76 THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 

slavery. I have graduated in that school where those who study 
become most thorough-going and emphatic Abolitionists. My Abo- 
litionism is but of recent growth. When I entered the army, I de- 
termined to do what I could to crush this rebellion. I believed, 
with hundreds of thousands of others, that it could be done without 
interfering with slavery. But I had been but a short time in the 
army when I saw that, to crush this rebellion, it was necessary to 
eradicate slavery. I had been there but a little while before I met 
" our erring brethren " on the field of battle, and, falling into their 
hands wounded and a prisoner, I was able to obtain information 
which I never possessed before. It was then and there that the 
conviction forced itself upon me that slavery must be abolished ; 
and, friends and fellow-citizens, I tell you it loill be abolished. (Ap- 
plause.) 

I am sorry that some of your members are quarreling with the 
means for accomplishing the ends for which you have labored so long 
and so faithfully. For my part, I am willing to accept the assist- 
ance and receive the help of all who are willing to accomplish this 
great end of freeing our country from what has been a curse to it, 
and has stained and defaced our escutcheon. I hope none of the 
members of this Society will think of laying down their armor; but 
if they do, I am sure there are those who are ready and anxious to 
work until not a slave remains on our soil. I do not suppose, for a 
moment, that one who has been a member of this Association for 
thirty years will think now, when the work is so nearly accomplished, 
of withdrawing, while yet so much remains to be done. A great 
deal remains to be done in the army, and a great deal by you who 
are at home. It is for you to uphold the hands of those who are 
administering the law at our capital. Faithfully have you per- 
formed it in years past; I am confident that faithfully you will per- 
form it, until the work for which you are associated shall be ended, 
and the rebellion shall be crushed. 

I agree with you, Mr. Chairman, that one of the great means 
adopted by the Government of this country in crushing this rebellion 
is the arming of the negro race. I believe that the arming of that 
class of our citizens will be the means of administering the last and 
crushing blow to slavery. At the South, we are arming those who 
have been made free by the Emancipation Proclamation of our Pres- 
ident. We also arm those who are still held in bondage. In Mary- 
land, in Delaware, in Kentucky, and in Tennessee, we are receiving 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. U 

those who are not included in that Proclamation into the armies of 
the United States, and thereby giving them freedom. 

I am not one of those vfho hope without reason, but I am confi- 
dent that this war is drawing to a close. I am equally confident that 
it will never end until the last slave is made free. There was a time 
when I imagined the colored man was not equal to the white man in 
intelligence. But if he is not — I do not say that he is not — give 
him for a few generations the opportunities that you enjoy, and he 
will make himself what it was intended by God that he should be, a 
man, in all respects, such as we are. (Applause.) I look at this 
matter from a military stand-point. I look upon the soldiers of our 
own color, and upon those of a darker complexion. I have had 
some little experience with both ; and my dispassionate opinion is, 
that the one is equal in every way to the other. The colored man 
makes as good a soldier as the white man. He obeys orders as 
promptly and as intelligently; he acquires the drill as perfect)}', if 
not more so, than the white soldier. His valor he has proved on 
many a bloody field ; his courage he has shown on the battle-field and 
in the hospital. And the day will come when he will show those that 
now look down upon him with contempt and reproach, that he is a 
man, willing to do and to dare all that other men do and dare, in 
striking for freedom and for the right. 

Mrs. MoTT inquired what had been the character of Camp William 
Penn, as to depredations upon property, as compared with camps of 
white soldiers. 

Col. Wagner. I am pleased to be able to say, that no depredations 
of any kind have been committed by the soldiers of Camp William 
Penn. The friends of the colored soldiers have been pleasantly and 
agreeably surprised to find them in this respect far superior to white 
soldiers in a similar position. I have never yet seen a camp of 
white soldiers where depredations were not committed ; but at Camp 
William Penn there have been no depredations. It is not owino- to 
a more rigid discipline there; we have no other rules than those that 
govern white camps. But the men seem to feel the dignity and re- 
sponsibility of their position. (Applause.) They seem to realize that 
the world is looking at them, and watching the progress of their 
camps, and of those of their color who have taken upon themselves 
the duty of fighting for the country and the flag. They come to the 
camp, many of them, ragged and dirty; but when they put on the 



78 THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 

uniform, they feel that they are men, and that they can hold up their 
heads among men. They are glad to see that even they have now an 
opportunity of doing something for our flag and for our nation. 
Say what you please about the degradation of the negro, it is all 
nonsense. Give him an opportunity of showing what he is, and he 
will show himself a man. 

The President. I can bear the same testimony with regard to 
the conduct of the colored regiments at Readville, in Massachusetts, 
where the 54th and 55th regiments were stationed. It is the univer- 
sal testimony of the neighborhood, and the whole region round about, 
that never before was there a regiment stationed in that neighborhood 
without depredations being committed ; but since the colored regi- 
ments have been there, there have been no depredations. 

SPEECH OF OLIVER JOHNSON. 

Looking back upon more than thirty years of personal identifica- 
tion with the Anti-Slavery movement, there is much that I could say 
if I felt at liberty to occupy these precious moments, i But I know 
there are many around me who are anxious to address you, and there- 
fore I will be brief. 

Since I came to this meeting, one thought has possessed me — one 
thought, hour by hour, and almost moment by moment ; and it is the 
thought of what I, as an Abolitionist, owe to the Anti-Slavery cause. 
Something has been said here of sacrifices made for that cause. 
Sacrifices have indeed been made and suff"erings endured by many 
true-hearted and noble-friends — sacrifices and sufi"erings of which it 
does not become me to speak lightly; but I appeal to you all, even 
to those who have suffered and endured most, to say if the personal 
benefits derived from the advocacy of the slave's cause do not out- 
weigh, a thousand-fold, all the trials which you have been called to 
endure on its account? Nay, if those trials themselves have not, 
through the overruling interposition of Clod, been turned into bless- 
ings? Such at least is my own experience; and I am here to-day 
with no memory of sacrifices made, but with a heart penetrated by 
a sense of gratitude for benefits received. The cause owes me noth- 
ing, but I am indebted to it beyond all power of payment, or even 
of computation. It has enhanced for me every joy of life, trans- 
muted pain to pleasure, brought light out of darkness, and crowned 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 79 

me with blessings indescribable and inestimable. There are no 
delights to be compared with those which we may earn by an unsel- 
fish devotion to a great and noble cause. My heart swells with 
thankfulness to God that he called me early to this work ; that while 
I was but a boy, on ray native hills in Vermont, I heard and heeded 
the trumpet-call of Garrison, and, through sympathy with his spii-it, 
learned to love him before I ever looked into his face. IIow vividly 
do I remember now the days of his imprisonment at Baltimore, and 
how my heart was thrilled in reading the noble lines which he 
inscribed on the walls of his cell, showing how, "in innocence, he was 
great and strong" ! How did I exult when he was released; with 
what interest did I watch his progress northward, and when at 
length he arrived in Boston, with what eagerness did I embrace the 
first opportunity to take his hand, and hear him plead the cause of 
the oppressed! From that moment I was an Abolitionist, and I 
look back now upon more than thirty years of earnest labor in the 
cause, regretting only that I have not been more entirely devoted to 
it, and have done so little in its behalf. It is little indeed that any 
of us have done for it, compared with what it has done for us. In 
laboring to break the chains of the slave, we have found deliverance 
from the fetters of superstition and priestcraft, and felt our minds 
and hearts expanding jn the sunlight of God's highest truth. Re- 
proached as infidels by a pro-slavery Church, we have found by expe- 
rience that those who devote themselves to the cause of humanity 
" walk with God," and in the fellowship of his saints. 

I entreat the young men and the young women here assembled, 
if they would enrich and ennoble their lives by the acquisition of 
whatever is most worthy of their ambition, to give themselves unre- 
servedly to the work of reform — to take the side of the oppressed 
and the wronged, to east their influence on the side of truth, however 
unpopular, and to allow no temptation of wealth or fame to swerve 
them by so much as a hair's breadth from the principles of justice 
and righteousness. The final triumph of the Anti-Slavery cause is, 
we hope, near at hand; but much remains to be done before we 
can lay off our armor. And when slavery has been abolished, other 
moral issues will be presented, other reforms arise, to test the cour- 
age and devotion of the new generation. The men and the women 
who have conducted the Anti-Slavery movement from its small be- 
ginning almost to the day of its triumph will soon pass away ; but 
the principles they have advocated will not perish, but live to inspire 
the devotion of succeeding generations to the end of time. 



80 THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 

I listen always with satisfaction to those who exhort us to fidelity, 
to those who set before us the work to be done, and exhort us to 
faithfulness in its performance. In all that our friend Foster has sai'd 
here to-day upon that point, I have sympathized with him. But let 
me say, in all frankness, that there is one particular in which I cannot 
agree with him. Through his whole speech ran the assumption, as it 
seemed to me, that his fellow-laborers here are ready to lay off their 
armor, regarding their work as done. Has any thing been said 
here to justify such an assumption ? I think not. Has he proposed 
any work for the performance of which we are not, one and all, 
ready to strike hands with him ? We are girding ourselves anew 
for the work before us, and we will not throw down our weapons till 
the last slave is free. (Applause.) But I, for one, find hope the 
best stimulus to labor. I shrink instinctively from the dark shadow 
which some of our friends would throw over us, when they affirm 
that, notwithstanding all that we have done for thirty years, the 
country is in a worse condition, in regard to the principles of univer- 
sal liberty, than it was at the close of the Revolutionary war. If I 
believed that, I should utterly despair of the cause. " We are saved 
by hope," says an apostle, and I believe it. The cheering signs 
which greet us on every hand, betokening the sjjeedy triumph of our 
cause, fill me with hopefulness, augmenting my power to work and 
my joy therein. 

Have we indeed done nothing in these thirty years ? Are we no 
nearer the end than we were at the beginning ? Is this nation to-day 
in no better position than it was thirty years ago, when this Society 
was first formed ? How can any body think so, in view of the facts 
by which we are surrounded? Take the press of this city for illus- 
tration. Thirty years ago, the men who formed this Society assem- 
bled in this city almost by stealth, and held their meetings in the 
daytime, warned by the Police that they could not be protected at 
night. There was not a newspaper here that would report their pro- 
ceedings — not one that did not denounce them as "fanatics" and 
" amalgauiationists," as men who were bent on the destruction of their 
country. How is it to-day ? Every press in the city sends its re- 
porters to our platform, and our proceedings are reported fairly and 
honorably. In this circumstance alone, we have an indication of a 
wonderful improvement in the public sentiment. 

It is said that, after all, the people are selfish — that they have not 
relinquished their hostility to the Anti-Slavery cause from pure love 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 81 

of principle, but for their own interest. But is it not a sign of pro- 
gress when men who have long resisted our movement have at last 
discovered that its claims are coincident with their worldly interest? 
Saints — perfect people — do not travel in regiments; and if I 
thought the slaves could not^be emancipated belore the mass of the 
people are brought up to the standard of absolute justice and right- 
eousness, I should expect them to grind in the prison-house for cen- 
turies. No good cause has ever triumphed except through influences 
and motives as various and mixed as those now operating in our 
country for the overthrow of slavery. If men preach the Gospel of 
Freedom, even though it be for strife and contention, shall we not 
rejoice? If they have formed a purpose to abolish slavery rather 
from a regard to their own interest than from love to the slave, shall 
we not thank God and take courage ? 

Charles C. Burleigh. What does it indicate in regard to the 
position of our cause, that selfishness should incline an}' man to seem 
to favor it ? Is it not a sign of progress and triumph ? 

SPEECH OF JAMES N. BUFFUM. 

You assigned mc the duty of collecting the money, instead of 
speaking, but I am inclined to endorse the last speech, and to say 
Amen to brother Johnson. Perhaps my experience as a business 
man is worth something. You know, sir, that I have been deeply 
interested in this cause for the last thirty-two years. Although it was 
not my privilege to sign the Declaration, I have often wished it had 
been. I was only prevented by illness. I glory in the fact that I 
was an Abolitionist before the signing of that Declaration; and I 
would give the best hundred dollars that I possess if my name were 
there. As I go about among business men who formerly hated me, 
I find them cordial, and expressing their approbation of my senti- 
ments, and avowing themselves Abolitionists. I feel encouraged, and 
it is a marvel to me to see the change. 

While our friend Abby Kelley Foster was speaking this morn- 
ing, there were a thousand facts rushing into my mind showing pro- 
gress. One I may mention, of an individual who, about two years 
ago, stood upon the platform of a Joun Buown meeting with a pis- 
tol in his hand, threatening death to the Abolitionists. A few days 
ago, he came out in a letter, in which he gloried in this war because, 
11 



82 THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 

first, it was to save the natioa's life ; secondly, because it was going 
to end in a higher civilization ; and above all, he gloried that the 
African was now able to vindicate his freedom in arms, 

I met a venerable man, a short time ago, one of our wealthiest 
citizens, who always contended against the principles which I entei'- 
tain, and he said to me, " Mr. Buffum, are you aware that every 
body is coming up to your platform ? " " No, I was not aware of 
that; but I know they will do it." "Well, it is a fact, and the 
nation has got to carry out your principles, and there is no other sal- 
vation for it." I was equally astonished the other day, in going 
down State street, in Boston, to meet a gentleman who, a short time 
ago, as he confessed, was in favor of putting down the Abolitionists, 
and he said, " Did you know that there was a great anti-slavery 
meeting held at the Merchants' Exchange?" "No." Well, now, 
the Merchants' Exchange is the headquarters of all the wealthy 
merchants of Boston, and there they are holding anti-slavery meet- 
ings, and they have turned the place into an anti-slavery lecture 
room ! Frederick Douglass was delivering one of his strongest 
anti-slavery lectures, and this man was among the audience listening. 

I say, it is marvellous how this Anti-Slavery cause is going on. I 
look at it, and thank God and take courage. 

The President. Those who think we have not made much pro- 
gress remind me of the story of the man in the Deluge, who, after 
every thing had been submerged, as the ark came floating by, came 
splurging up in the midst of the waters, and tried to get in. Failing 
in this, he said with disgust, " Go to thunder with your old ark ; it 
is not much -of a shower after all ! " But now the fountains of the 
great deep are broken up, and slavery is going under, and the Ark 
of Liberty is floating triumphantly, and soon it shall rest on Mount 
Ararat, and those who have kept the covenant shall come forth re- 
joicing, and the land shall be redeemed for ever. 

SPEECH OF LUCY STONE. 

It is because there is anti-slavery work left to be done that any of 
us should be speaking here to-day, or asking for help in the work. I 
believe that those who have spoken upon the two sides, that much is 
to be done, and that much has been done, are both equally right. It 
cannot be that those who have toiled thirty years in such a work as 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 83 

this, who have stood on this phitform until they have grown old and 
gray, and especially in the midst of a strife where our fathers and 
brothers, husbands and sons are being slaughtered by thousands, will 
cease to labor while that strife goes on, though it may not seem to 
require much labor on our part to make the last death-rattle of sla- 
very sound in its throat. When I sat here yesterday, and heard the 
speakers giving an account of the first meeting of the Society, and 
heard one speaker say of James Mott, that in that early day his hair 
was untouched by the gray, I thought I have only known him since 
his head was covered with white, but thank God I have known him 
so long ! And Mr. Garrison's hair was not then thinned, making 
him to look like the prophet Elisua. But these men were all young 
and earnest wheli they pledged themselves to go on with this work, 
and never to cease. I thank God for them ; and I concur in the 
ground that they take, that much remains to be done. Prejudice 
against the negro is to be overcome ; for slavery is let down deeper 
in the hearts of the people of this country than they themselves know. 
We see a great deal of opposition to slavery, and it is wonderful to 
see the change. But it is very much like the water in Niagara 
river, which goes along because it cannot help it, and not because it 
wants to. It may be because I live in New Jersey, in the midst of a 
nest of copperheads, where ray next door neighbor believes that men 
ought to be bought and sold, and tells me frankly to ray face that he 
believes it; but I cannot help feeling that there is a great deal of 
pro-slavery sentiment yet to be rooted out. We all need to work 
for it. 

And when we see what our friends Susan B. Anthony and Mrs. 
Stanton are doing in New York, almost without aid ; seeing that 
there is need of a law to abolish slavery, lest there should be any 
misunderstanding ; seeing that the Constitution, rightly interpreted, 
meant anti-slavery, while the Supreme Court said there was no anti- 
slavery about it ; asking for a law so plain that it cannot be mis- 
taken, declaring that there shall be no slavery nor involuntary servi; 
tude any where in all these United States ; when we see our friends 
trying to obtain a million of names to a petition for such a law, is 
there nothing to be done on the part of woman ? Men may vote ; 
but I shall never forget, unless it ceases to be a fact, that women 
have no such possibility of expression. We are not allowed to vote ; 
but we may petition, and by and by they will hear. Send these pe- 
titions by hundreds and thousands into your villages and hamlets, 



84 THIRTIETH ANNIVERSAKY OP THE 

and let the returns be as numerous as they ought to be ; for I know 
there are a great many young girls who may not have an opportu- 
nity to work in other ways, and boys not old enough to vote, who 
will be glad to have the opportunity to do something, and they can 
circulate these petitions. I remember that an old man told me once 
that if I came to him again with such a petition, (it was for a law allow- 
ing colored people and whites to intermarry,) he would ride me on a 
rail. I went every year, was never carried on a rail, and his wife 
always signed the petition. By and by we can put all these petitions 
together, when we have got all the names we can, and carry them in 
a large roll to Congress; and there will be men there brave enough 
and true enough to be willing to present them. And if what we do 
shall bring about the result we seek, in aid of the Pi*esident's procla- 
mation, and there shall be a law passed, that there shall be neither 
slavery nor involuntary servitude in any part of the United States, 
how thankful we shall be ! The youngest boy and the youngest girl, 
as well as the oldest man and woman, may thank God, and rejoice 
that they have assisted in making this a free country. 

SPEECH OF MRS. FRANCES D. GAGE. 

Ladies and Gentlemen : 

On my lone little isle of the sea, (Paris Island, S. C.,) I have 
hardly had the opportunity of reading newspapers, or knowing what 
course the current of events at the North was taking ; and I con- 
fess that I have listened to the remarks here, yesterday and to-day, 
with some surprise. I did not suppose there was any one interested 
in anti-slavery at the North, that had not faith enough to see through 
all that is going on to-day, and to believe that slavery is coming to 
an end. Why, old Sophy, at her cabin door, would teach you better 
faith than I have heard here from some to-day. She came to see me 
after the battle of Fredericksburg, where some of my kindred fell, 
and found me weeping. " Missis, what makes you cry, honey ? 
This is n't a nigger war ; it is n't a secesh war ; it is God's war ; it 
will all come out right." And old Sophy, and the great hearts of 
the race, have taught us faith, until it is now unwavering. We need 
not listen for the words of Mr. Seward, or to learn what the men at 
Washington are doing. We can learn a better wisdom, while they 
are thinking of it ; and when we speak our hearts strongly enough, 
they will respond. Let us be like the Western boys on the Lookout 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLATERT SOCIETY. 85 

iMouutain; when our commander at Washington tells us to take the 
rifle-pits at the bottom of the mountain, and we have taken them, let 
us, with enthusiasm, with our knapsacks on our backs, move onward 
and upward until we take the batteries at the top, without waiting to 
talk about having nothing to do. We have a grand work to do. If, 
as some of our friends say, Mr. Seward makes a better speech after 
the election than before it, let us compel him to continue to make 
better speeches until he makes them right. (Applause.) 

I have seen better evidence than any thing here that slavery is 
coming to an end. I have stood surrounded by black men and 
women, not picked men, but black men crushed down as low as South 
Carolina could crush them, and that is saying as much as any one 
can say ; I have seen them self-sustaining, putting money into their 
banks, to supply their own needs. And I have seen the women stay- 
ing behind to till the cotton and the corn, and sending their husbands 
and sons to the battle-field to fight for liberty. And do you think 
this great hope is ready to roll back? As well attempt to put the 
oak back into the acorn, or turn Niagara back upon its fountains. I 
tell you nay. Whatever the politicians may do, if the people are 
faithful, the end must come, and that end shall be universal freedom. 

And now, with regard to these petitions that have been presented 
to you to-day, sign them and circulate them with a hearty good-will. 
If you can do nothing else in your neighborhood, you can circulate 
these petitions. And ^?hen the women of this country shall give ex- 
pression to their private home feelings through these petitions, there 
is no power at Washington strong enough to resist the influence. A 
million of women, asking for the emancipation of all the slaves of this 
Union, will be a larger power than this country has been in the habit 
of thinking women possessed. Work faithfull}^ earnestly, unfalter- 
ingly, and the end will come, and we shall sing hallelujahs over a 
country redeemed, where no slave sighs in bondage, and no mother 
gives birth to a slave. 

The President read a letter from John Jolliffe, Esq., formerly 
of Cincinnati, now of Washington, written in the expectation that he 
might not be able to attend the meeting. Having read the letter, 
the President continued : The name of Mr. Jolliffe must be very 
familiar to a large number in this audience. He has been a distin- 
guished lawyer of Cincinnati, and for a number of years he has 
interposed at all times, whenever needed, in behalf of the fugitive 



86 THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 

slave. His life has been imperilled ; he has been hunted by the 
bloodhounds of slavery; and he has won for himself the esteem and 
love of the friends of freedom every where. Yesterday I was told 
that he would not probably be with us, but I am happy to-day to he 
able to introduce him to you. 

SPEECH OF JOHxN JOLLIFFE. 

I did not come here with any expectation of speaking, but to have 
my heart cheered by what I should hear. I am glad, however, to 
have an opportunity of standing here to speak to this audience. If 
every slave were to be emancipated to-morrow, we should have 
enough work to do to keep us busy for a hundred years. The effects 
of slavery will remain long after every slave has been emancipated. 
This people have all to be educated up to the standard Grod intenckd 
they should occupy in his creation. This is our hardest work. It is 
missionary work, as much so as that of any foreign missionary enter- 
prise ever conducted in this country. I have no faith, as a general 
rule, in politicians. They are only the exponents of the public will. 
This little band of twenty or thirty men have done this mighty- 
work, Abraham Lincoln's proclamation was not one that came, as 
I believe, from his heart. It was one that he was impelled to issue 
by the force of public opinion behind him. And if we want other 
proclamations of freedom, or other great enterprises successively, we 
must labor with renewed diligence, and they will be accomplished. 
If so much has been done by thirty or forty people in Massachu- 
setts, and scattered in different parts of the United States, how much 
more can be done when we have a hundred thousand Abolitionists 
to aid in the work ? The whole army of the Northwest are Aboli- 
tionists, and they speak against slavery in words so harsh that Mr. 
Garrison would never utter them. 

Mr. Garrison. I was told that, last evening, one man, who had 
always been conservative, left the meeting in consequence of the 
tameness of my remarks. He could not stand it ! (Laughter.) 

J. Miller McKim, from the Business Committee, reported the 
following resolution and memorial, which were adopted by a unani- 
mous vote ; the memorial to be signed by the President and other 
officers of the Society, and forwarded to the bodies to which it is ad- 
dressed : — 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVEHY SOCIETY. 87 

Resolved, That, as the voice of the people is heard through peti- 
tions to Congress, this Convention earnestly recommend that this 
voice be raised in petitions for an amendment of the Constitution, 
for ever prohibiting slavery within the limits of the United States. 

M E M R I A L 
To the Se?iate and House of Representatives, in Congress assembled. 
The American Anti-Slavery Society, assembled in its Third Dec- 
ade Meeting, iu the city of Philadelphia, respectfully petitions your 
honorable body so to amend the Constitution that slavery shall be 
for ever prohibited within the limits of the United States, 

SPEECH OF REV. SAMUEL J. MAY. 

I occupied the time yesterday with reminiscences, because the 
meeting was in the humor for such things. But I am not disposed 
to look back, in the great work which we undertook thirty years ago, 
for I see how much remains to be done. My eyes are intently fixed 
upon that which is before us. Far from putting ofi" the anti-slavery 
armor, I feel that we must buckle it closer to our bodies, our hearts 
and souls, resolving that we will not cease from the labor we have 
commenced until not only slavery is abolished, but until all that 
can be done to repair the damages caused by slavery to the popula- 
tion of our country, black and white, shall have been done. That is 
the work to which we are called. There seems to be discouragement 
in the minds of a few, because, I think, they do not fully appreciate 
what has been already accomplished, and are not eai'nest enough in 
behalf of what yet remains. Of course, I have not been satisfied 
with all our good President has decreed or proposed ; but I consider 
what he was at the commencement of his administration, and per- 
ceive that he has made great progress. His interpretation of the 
Constitution has trammelled him. But I believe he has always been 
honest. At first, he was on a very low plane — almost as low as the 
slaveholder's. But he has risen — recently, has risen faster than the 
people. I believe he is ready, willing, eager to rise as far as right- 
eousness shall demand ; yes, to the summit of the requirements of 
impartial justice. Has he not said something to this efi"ect? — "I 
am the servant of the people. If the people want emancipation, 
why do they not demand it?" Who for a moment believes that our 
President, notwithstanding the incubus that hangs upon him in the 
persons of some of his Cabinet, will not do all he may think that he 
ought to favor the progress of liberty? He must, he will, in all 



88 THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 

good conscience, do only what at the time shall seem to himself to be 
right and proper. I have watched his course ; and though I have 
been impatient with hiui, yet have I never seen any thing that has 
impaired my confidence in his good intentions. I am persuaded that 
he desires and intends to do right. Let us, then, persevere in the 
work we commenced thirty years ago, — educating the people, and 
the officials of the people, — the President himself, if he needs in- 
struction, — until they and he shall be brought to see, in its original 
brightness, the truth, the glorious truth, that was radiated upon our 
nation at its birth, and which our fathers declared to be self-evident ; 
that truth, which, alas ! has been so obscured that some of our prom- 
inent statesmen and divines have dared to pronounce it " a rhetorical 
flourish " — "a glittering generality" — "a palpable exaggeration" — 
" an obvious lie " ; aye, aye, and the people have been so politically 
depraved as not to be horrified by such utterances, and rise, as they 
should have done, with one accord, to denounce such impious traducers 
of the Declaration of Independence. 

We put our hands to a great work, thirty years ago ; greater far 
than we then supposed. Although much remains to be done, let us 
praise Grod that he has enabled us to do what we have. Although 
we did not succeed, as we earnestly endeavored to, in averting what 
we clearly foresaw and foretold to be inevitable, if slavery could not 
be abolished by moral and religious instrumentalities — a civil and 
servile war; although we have not been so successful in our labors as 
to avert that horrible calamity, may we not rejoice that God, in his 
long-suffering and exact justice, is still with our nation, — a nation 
guilty beyond all other nations, because our opportunities, our privi- 
leges, our light, have all been greater than theirs? How has he 
overruled our mistakes, enlightened our counsels, and led us, by the 
necessities of the case, to adopt the measures which alone can lead to 
our redemption ! There is no part of the history of our race, in all 
time past, that seems to me to indicate the hand of Almighty God 
more distinctly than we see it in his dealings with our nation to-day. 
For nothing do I ever give thanks to the Most High more heartily 
than for this, that he will not permit the children of men, nationally 
any more than individually, to sin with impunity. Never do I ofi'er 
a prayer that the consequences of our sins may be averted from us. 
I only ask that we may be brought to forsake our sins, and abhor 
them. If we throw them not ofi" under the pressing influence of his 
goodness, then do I thank God for the chastisements by which he 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 89 

compels us to renounce them. So that now, ■while I am filled with 
grief, and my heart is continually harrowed by the reports which 
come to us of the tuficrings of our fellow-men, our neighbors, our 
relatives, who have been sent into the battle-field, yet, nevertheless, 
do I give thanks, that having sinned as we have done, beyond the 
day of grace, God is now, in the day of his visitation, helping, com- 
pelling the people of our land to do the work meet for repentance ; 
and that now, without much longer delay, every yoke is to be broken, 
and the millions of our enslaved countrymen are to be set free. The 
work which we, w'th such singleness of purpose and earnestness of 
heart, commenced thirty years ago, but found too hard for moral sua- 
sion and ecclesiastical discipline to accomplish, will now be done, 
thoroughly done, by the sterner instruments which the Almighty, in 
his righteous displeasure with us, has permitted to be applied. 

Let us, then, now that the blindest are coming to see that the sin 
of slavery is the cause of our nation's woe, let us now go, by hun- 
dreds and thousands, and tens of thousands, and demand of our le- 
gislators the entire abolition of slavery throughout the land. Now 
is the day, and now the hour. Necessity demands what justice and 
mercy have long begged for in vain. Necessity knows no law, no 
constitution, but is a law unto herself. Necessity will compel our 
rulers not merely to give liberty to those who have been the subjects 
of rebels, but to give liberty to all within our borders; for our ter- 
rible experience has taught us that slavery, tolerated any where in 
the country, will be a root of bitterness that will ere long produce 
fruits certainly not less evil than those which we have eaten of dur- 
ing the last three years. Let us go, then, to the Grovernment of our 
country, and assure the legislative, the judicial, and the executive 
officers of it, that, never while we live, or while those live whom we 
have inspired with feelings like our own, never shall the anti-slavery 
agitation of our country cease, so long as there is any slavery in 
the land. Let them see that we say this not as a mere threat, but as 
our solemn conviction of duty. We did not espouse the cause of the 
oppressed as a matter of choice. We were impelled to it by a deep 
sense of moral obligation ; and that obligation cannot cease to urge 
us, until the unparalleled iniquity of American slavery is entirely 
and for ever abolished m every part of these United States, and our 
country has indeed become " the laud of the free, and the asylum of 
the oppressed." 

13 



90 THIBTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 

Orson S. Murray expressed his belief that Mr. and.Mrs. Foster 
had been misapprehended by those who had spoken in reply to them. 
A great work was to be done to build up a correct public sentiment 
at the North ; and while we turn our attention so much to what has 
already been accomplished, there is danger of overlooking the great 
work yet to be done. 

SPEECH OF ANDREW T. FOSS. 

I feel very unwilling to ask you, after listening so long to excel- 
lent speeches, to hear what I have tO',say ; and yet I want to say a 
few words. If there is any thing in this world I am covetous of, it 
is anti-slavery fame. I do not care about any other, but I want that. 
I want my name to stand connected with the Anti-Slavery movement, 
as far as possible. If I have no other legacy to leave the only child 
that is spared me, I want to le^'e an anti-slavery reputation. I was 
not a signer of the Declaration of Sentiments made in this place 
thirty years ago ; but I can say, with friend Bdffum, that I wish I 
had been. He thinks he would be w'illing to pay a hundred dollars. 
I would give ten years of my life, and that is about all I have to 
hope for, if I had been a signer of that Declaration. But although 
I was not a signer of that Declaration, I was in the field before that. 

The first thing I ever heard of anti-slavery was Mr. Garrison's 
pamphlet, " Thoughts on Colonization." I had at that time a colo- 
nization agent in my house, whom I was expecting to preach for me 
the next Sunday; but I was compelled to say to him, "What shall 
I do ? I agree entirely with the views of this pamphlet." But I 
told him — "I will let you preach for me on one condition; and 
that is, that you will let rac reply to you. On no other condition 
will I consent, for from this time henceforth I am an immediate, un- 
conditional Abolitionist," I believe I was born so ; for I have no 
knowledge of any conviction or of any conversion. The moment I 
heard this Gospel of Truth, I accepted it. But I did not feel like 
entering directly upon this as the great work of my life. That was 
the ministry to which I had been ordained ; but I intended to preach 
the everlasting gospel, and as much anti-slavery as the gospel would 
afiford. So I wrote me an anti-slavery sermon, I believe the first 
ever delivered in New Hampshire, and delivered it with the hope that 
it would be popular. I prepared the sermon with more interest than 
I had ever felt in writing a sermon before ; and I waited the nest 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVEET SOCIETY. 91 

Sunday morning with the utmost impatience for the bell to ring; and 
when it rung, it seemed to me it would ring for ever. The words 
of the Lord were shut up like fire in my bones, and I wanted to give 
them utterance. I went into my pulpit, and had a crowded audience. 
I expected to get a hearty response from them. I had a Judge of 
the Supreme Court of the State sitting in the broad aisle, and I 
thought that when I got along a little way, I should look down and 
see the Judge nodding his head, and looking smilingly upon me. 
But in about fifteen minutes I looked down, and the Judge, instead 
of smiling approbation, looked as if he was about to pass sentence 
of death upon me. I was disappointed ; but I said, " I have put my 
hand to the plough, and I will plough this furrow out, at any rate." 
And so, from that day to this, I have been trying to do what I could 
for anti-slavery. For twenty years I tried to bring the Baptist 
Church, its Bible Societies, Missionary Societies and Tract Societies, 
upon the true ground on the anti-slavery question, until I gained the 
reputation of being a disturber of Zion. But at last I came to the 
conclusion that I could free the Baptist Church, and all other 
churches, faster outside of them than I could in them. It seemed as 
if I could get a better hold of them outside ; and so, for the last 
ten years, I have been outside of the Church. And if the Church 
stands higher to-day than she did thirty years ago, I lay the unction 
to my soul that I have lifted some ounces towards getting her up. 
I am full of hope and expectation. I may be disappointed, as I 
have been two or three times in my life ; but I have never been dis- 
appointed when I have placed my faith in Almighty God, and I 
shall not be now. We are to see slavery end at some time, and the 
only question is how soon, and by what instrumentality? I believe 
it will end by the hand of this war. I believe that when the last 
rebel is either dead or subdued — and God grant that one or the 
other may take place soon! — there will not be a slave clanking his 
chain in all this land. It may be assumption for me to say that all 
this is as clear to me as the sunlight; but if I cannot give any 
better reason for it, I will give that of Milly, in Mrs. Stowe's 
" DiiKD," that "I feel it in my bones." I know there is a great 
work to be done. I feel that I am doing it, and I mean to keep 
doing until the last labor is accomplished. But I must have this 
encouragement to bear me up, as I move around in the work, to be- 
lieve that every blow is efiectual, and counts for the truth at last. 
We are getting near the end, and I expect to live to see slavery abol- 



92 THIKTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 

ished. I mean to be at the great jubilee, wherever it is holden ; and 
I suppose that will be all over the land, every where. I said, a little 
while ago, that I was about ready to die; but a friend says there are 
a hundred years' work to do, and so I think I will live on and labor 
on until the last effort that human nature is capable of putting forth 
shall be finished. Then will be the right time to die; and I promise 
you that I will die when my time comes. 

Now I bid you farewell, and invite you all to be present with me 
at the jubilee, which is near at our doors. 

SPEECH OF STEPHEN S. FOSTER. 

If I have not made a good speech myself, I have at least been 
the occasion of half a dozen good speeches. Last evening, a pro- 
fessed phrenologist came to me, and asked the privilege of putting 
his hands for a few moments on my head. He wanted to ascertain 
the cerebral developments of such a peculiar man. I assented, and 
when I reached my quarters, he was waiting for me. After feeling 
of my head a while in silence, .he said : " Mr. Foster, I am very 
much surprised. I expected to find Corabativeness and Destructive- 
ness very large in your head. On the contrary, I find them exceed- 
ingly small." Now, I think that gentleman was not the only one 
mistaken in this Convention. I have been represented to this audi- 
ence as living in a cloud. That is news to me. It is news, I am 
sure, to ray wife, who thinks I shall upset every thing, I have so 
little caution. I always look at things from the brightest side, and 
I supposed I al vays lived in the sunlight. Our friend Foss stands 
here to-day in the sunshine of hope. I never saw a day in which I 
did not believe I should live to see slavery dead and buried out of 
sight ; because I meant to take such care of my physical constitution 
that I should outlive this monster. I calculate upon attending the 
funeral of slavery, and will preach the sermon, if some of my asso- 
ciates do not live to do it. I expect to pronounce my malediction 
there with a full and overflowing heart. 

There is a principle always guiding me to be with the minority. I 
have always felt that my place is with the minority, defending the 
weak point. When you were desponding, I preached hope to such 
an extent that I was called a hair-brained enthusiast. How many 
times have my friends cautioned me, upon this platform, against such 
excessive hope ! And why ? Because nobody else was hopeful. 
But now, when you are all overflowing with hope, in Heaven's 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERT SOCIETT. 93 

name, is it any harm if one man loolcs around to see if there are any 
breakers ahead, and to warn you that it is not yet time to lay off 
your armor? Suppose there are no breakers ahead, will it do you 
any harm to be watchful and vigilant? Does my preaching lull you 
to inactivity? But in the hurry this morning, crowding into fifteen 
minutes a speech of two hours and a half, I inadvertently said that 
if any of you were disposed to retire from the conflict, I was not ; 
and that, by implication, was regarded as a censure. In the first 
place, I did not intend it as a censure. If you can serve the Anti- 
Slavery cause better off the platform, then go, and my heart goes 
with you. But for one, I have confidence in the instrumentalities 
we have uped these thirty years, and my motto is still, " No Union 
with Slaveholders! " No union with the United States Government, 
so long as a shive treads the Airieriean soil ! That is my position. 
If you do not like this kind of armor, lay it oft' and go somewhere 
else, and my heart and hand shall go with you. If you are battling 
with slavery upon the field of blood, you are not on my platform. 
That is an aggressive weapon, that we repudiated at the outset ; and 
we pledged ourselves never to use it. I cast, therefore, no reflections 
upon those who have left our platform, or resort to this mode of 
warfare ; but for one, I will continue as I ever have done. I do not 
censure any one who works not upon our platform ; but it ought to be 
known to us — it was not known to our friend May, or he would not 
have said there was not a member of the Executive Committee, or 
prominent member of the Society, who was disposed to retire from 
this warfare — that there are members of the Executive Committee 
of the American Anti-Slavery Society who are decidedly opposed to 
carrying on this warfare any longer as we have done, and think that 
our sending forth anti-slavery agents would do more harm than 
good. I do not question the anti-slavery integrity of those friends. 
They have my fullest confidence, so far as their moral and anti-slavery 
worth is concerned. I only say they difi'er from me as to instru- 
mentalities. I think that if we are " the sacramental host of God's 
elect," we should stand together on this platform ; but while I pre- 
fer to labor here, I will give my heart and hand to any friend who 
will labor any where else in our cause. 

Thomas Wiiitson said : This has been an interesting meeting to 
me; and the reason you have not heard from me has been, that all I 
wanted to say has been so much better said by others. 

The Society adjourned until 7 P. M. 



94 THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OP THE 



SECOND DAY— Evening Session. 

The Society assembled at 7 o'clock, the Hall being crowded to its 
utmost capacity. 

Robert Purvis, on rising to speak, was received with marked en- 
thusiasm. He delivered an impassioned address, dwelling mainly 
upon the proscriptive spirit of caste, which, in defiance of the funda- 
mental principles of the American Government, deprives the colored 
man of his political, educational and social rights, and often exposes 
him to insult and outrage. We regret that we have no report of his 
speech, having been disappointed in the expectation that he would 
himself write it out for publication. 

Mr. Purvis, before commencing his address, read the following 
memoir of one of the earliest friends of the Anti-Slavery cause in 
this country : — 

MEMOIR OF ARNOLD BUFFUM. 

Arnold Buffum, first President of the New England Anti -Slavery 
Society, son of William and Lydia Buffum, was born at Smithfield, 
R. L, 1782. 

In the house of his father, who was a member of the old Aboli- 
tion Society, Arnold, when a child, often listened to the stories of 
an old colored man who had once been a slave. After telling of 
the cruelties and degradations of his slave life, he would proudly say 
of his youngest son, " Pero loves Coffee more than all his children, 
'cause he free born ! " 

From his earliest youth, Arnold Buffum maintained a faithful 
testimony against slavery, though his true, loving heart was often 
deeply wounded by the coldness and enmity of those who had once 
been his friends. For, at the time when great fortunes were first 
made by cotton manufacturers in New England, they believed that 
cotton could only be furnished at profitable rates by slave labor, and 
they disliked, and sought to silence, all expression against it. Great 
was his joy to meet William Lloyd Garrison, and the glorious 
company who formed the first Anti-Slavery Society. 

In 1825. Arnold Buffum visited England, and there enjoyed the 
society and friendship of Elizabeth Fry, Amelia Opie, Thomas 
Clarkson, Joseph Sturge, Richard Webb, and others, who heartily 
sympathized with him in his love of liberty. 

After a life spent in earnest work to promote Education, Tempe- 
rance, and Emancipation, he departed March loth, 1859, at the age 
of 77 years, having earned the title, Friend of Man, and his end 
was peace. 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 95 

The President. There are on the table a considerable number of 
letters addressed to the meeting by friends of the cause who could 
not be with us in person. Interesting as they are, and much as we 
esteem the writers, we are constrained for want of time to omit 
reading them. They will be published, however, with our pro- 
ceedings. 

SPEECH OF THEODORE TILTON. 

Good Friends : 

I thank you for this courtesy, and wish I could say something 
worthy of your good-will. But when the Committee asked me to 
speak, I pleaded that I might sit dumb ; because this is a meeting 
for retrospect — for old men's tongues and young men's ears. Sit- 
ting for two days on this platform, I have not been able to realize, 
even yet, that this is a public meeting. I know the doors stand open 
to all comers, and many strangers are here ; yet, looking over this 
multitude, I see such a host of my own dear and personal friends — 
men and women whose names I could name — whose hands I have 
often clasped in fellowship — at whose board I have partaken hospi- 
tality — from whose lips I have had many pleasant words of good 
cheer — that now, as I look upon you all, gathered here from many 
different towns, and cities, and States — brought together after many 
miles of journeying — it seems to me that this meeting is mainly 
and chiefly a family reunion of fathers and children — and that I 
am one of the children. And now, though I am summoned to my 
feet to speak, my mind keeps wandering away from all the intellect- 
ual activities that have marked the three preceding sessions of this 
Convention, and I am thinking at this moment, not of any of the 
great questions that have been discussed — not of any keen encounter 
of debate — nor, indeed, of any cunning argument with which to- 
night I might hope to win you to new allegiance to the good cause — 
but rather of the devout gratitude to God that fills my heart be- 
cause of His giving to me — the latest and least man among you — 
one born out of due time — a share, however humble and small, 
in that sublime work upon which you have now set the crown of 
thirty victorious years ! My heart rises to my lips, and makes me 
say. May grace and mercy and peace from God our Father abide 
upon us all to-night ! 

Sir, I know these people ! And I speak the truth when I say 



96 THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 

that here before us sit many humble men and women of whom the 
world is not worthy. And here behind us on this platform are 
whitened heads, in whose presence I stand reverent and abashed. 
Who am I that I should stand up among such as these ? Shall a 
pupil discourse to his teachers ? Thirty years ! Sir, I know not so 
many. This Society is two years older than I. Before my cradle 
was rocked, you were already in the world, able to walk alone. 
(Laughter.) 

As you have all been talking personalities, you must let me do the 
same. On my way to this Convention, I received a curious letter. 
It was concerning my genealogy. Now, I was never greatly inter- 
ested in genealogies, and never took any pains to trace my lineage 
backward into the past — always feeling that I should never be very 
proud of it. I find now, that I am directly descended from the 
English nobility — nothing to be proud of, certainly! (Laughter.) 
Yet there is a redeeming feature in the history. The ancestral no- 
bleman was Sir John Tilton, who spent his fortune on the Gunpow- 
der Plot, and got hung for it! (Laughter.) I knew before, that a 
later ancestor was Peter Tilton, who hid the E-egicides at Hadley, 
Massachusetts. Later than this, I was born in the very year and 
month when Mr. Gtarrison Wias mobbed in Boston ! Now, these 
three facts, taken together, give me, I think, a valid title to my agi- 
tating tendencies ! (Laughter.) 

It was a beautiful picture, that drawn by Whittier in his letter 
of yesterday morning, of the small upper room in a black man's 
house in this city, where, thirty years ago, the architects of this So- 
ciety went up one after another, and signed their names to their sol- 
emn covenant against American slavery. I could draw a picture, 
not so quiet and pleasant, of the place where I made my own cove- 
nant — not with any man, but with God — to spend my life in the 
same cause. It was in the city of Bichmond. This auction-block 
standing here adds double vividness to my recollection of the scene. 
Under the red flag of a slave auctioneer, I walked into a slave mar- 
ket, and heard a voice crying, " This woman's name is Mary — how 
much am I bid for her ? " — and there, before my eyes, standing on 
such a block as this, was a woman holding a babe at her breast, a 
boy standing at one side, and a girl at the other ! Shall I tell you 
what became of them ? The mother and the babe were sold to 
North Carolina, the boy to Georgia, and the girl to Missouri. My 
80ul flushed into my face like fire, and then and there, in that slave- 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLATERY SOCIETY. 97 

pen, I said to myself, Bj the grace of God, as Hannibal swore eter- 
nal hostility to Rome, I swear eternar hostility <o American slavery! 
(Applause.) This was my first sight of that great conspiracy against 
human nature, which, breaking out afterwards into an armed rebel- 
lion against the Republic, has crowned that capital city with a crown 
of crime. This, sir, is my reminiscence to add to yours. 

Now, after thirty years, what hath God wrought? The other day 
I was reading a little memorial of Mr. Gakkison's early labors in 
establishing The Lifjerator, when the profits of the paper were so 
small that the editor and his printer lived chiefly on bread and 
water ; " but," said the printer, " when we sold more copies than 
usual, we bought each a cup of milk." That, sir, was the milk-and- 
water period of the Anti-Slavery enterprise. (Laughter.) To-day, 
the good cause feeds on strong meat! My friend, the Rev. Mr. 
Sloane, of New York, told me that when he was a boy in Ohio, 
where his father's house stood always open for hospitality to all anti- 
slavery itinerants, a lecturer came there one day, whose coat showed 
that it had been kissed by an egg, and one that had a bad breath. 
" Let me wipe off the stain," said young Sloane. " Never mind, my 
lad," said the hero, " for if you rub it off, I will only catch another 
at the next town." (Laughter.) But now-a-days, an anti-slavery 
lecturer may go to the nest town, and the nest, and the next, and 
keep a clean coat clean all the way ! And now, how sublimely has 
God evolved out of the small beginnings of this enterprise of thirty 
years ago, the grand results which all men's eyes see to-day ! For 
though the cause is yet in its struggle, it cannot suffer defeat. Its 
beginners are likely to live to see its glorious end. " Behold how 
great a matter a little fire kindleth ! " Behold how much has been 
accomplished by the patient labors of a few brave souls, who finally 
have set all the world to work with them in the same great cause ! 
How few were the originators of this enterprise ! They were only a 
handful ! Yes, Jupiter's thunderbolts were only a handful, but they 
•shook the whole world ! (Applause.) I think often of that saying 
of Annie of Austria, " God does not pay at the end of every week, 
but he pays at last." Now, at the end of a generation, for all the 
struggle, for all the toil, for all the obstacles and perils, for all the 
burdens borne in the heat of the day — what a rich reward foils to 
these early laborers, young then, but now gray! — what retrospect 
and prospect ! — what memories of the past and hopes of the future ! 
In the beginning, the whole power of the Government — its laws, its 
13 



98 THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 

policies, its bayonets, bore against the slave; now all these, like 
sharpened arrows, are barbed against the slave's master. The great 
slave-mongers of History have been Commerce and War. But now 
Commerce has set her hand and seal to a treaty against the slave 
trade ; and War, no longer an enslaver, has become an emancipator. 
(Applause.) Mr. Purvis gave a fit and beautiful designation to the 
great decree of the President, which crowned that new year with a 
new policy. What is the significance of that act ? A Lombard 
king who marched through the length of Italy, coming to the south 
shore, rode on horseback into the water up to the saddle-girth, when, 
rising in his stirrups, he took a javelin, and, hurling it far forward, 
e:^claimed, as it fell into the sea, "Thus far do I extend the boun- 
dary of the Lombard power ! " So Abraham Lincoln, drawing from 
the War Power the beneficent weapon of Emancipation, has hurled 
it over nine rebellious States, saying, " Thus far do I extend the 
boundary of Human Freedom ! " (Applause.) 

But by whom was this weapon put into the President's hands? I 
will tell you. De Tocqueville, who wrote of this country as it was 
thirty years ago, said that such were then the prevailing views of 
Federal rights and State rights, that if a conflict should arise botween 
the Government at Washington and the Government at any State cap- 
ital, the State would be strong enough to pluck the victory, and the 
Federal centre would be too weak to do any thing but yield. Now, 
what if this rebellion, instead of breaking out in 1860, had broken 
out in 1830? It would then have conquered the Government! 
Nothing could have saved the Union from the disintegrating blow. 
Now what, during these last thirty years, has so strengthened the 
Government that it is now able to conquer, not one, but a dozen re- 
bellious States? It is that change in the moral convictions of a free 
people, which, more and more unifying Northern opinions g,nd inter- 
ests against the South, now at last knits and binds all the loyal 
States into a steadfast allegiance to the Federal Government, and 
gives to the Executive every weapon needed to crush the rebellion, ■ 
and to preserve the Republic. The conspiracy, we are told, began 
about thirty years ago ; its antidote began about the same time. 
While our enemy was secretly fashioning his spear, God inspired a 
company of good men to set to work immediately to make the shield. 
It was thus that the anti-slavery agitation arose — the mass of the 
people not knowing why, and clamoring against it as the disturber of 
their peace, little dreaming that this very agitation was to create 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 99 

their future safeguard against an approaching conspiracy. I declare, 
what history will prove, that the unity of the North to-day, in its 
conflict with the South, is a legitimate result of that moral awak- 
ening whoso first trumpet-call this Society sounded into the startled 
ears of the nation thirty years ago. (Applause.) The Anti-Slaveiy 
agitation, and this alone, to-day makes it possible for Abraham Lin- 
coln to stand victor over the slaveholders' rebellion! (Applause.) 
All honor, therefore, to the early pioneers of the Anti-Slavery move- 
ment ! The nation owes to these men its present safety; and when 
it has time to stop and think, it will give them, as the reward due to 
their labors, the gratitude of the present and of future generations. 
(Applause.) 

The same Divine Providence — for it has not been the work of 
man — the same Providence that began this sublime work will carry 
it victoriously to its consummation. I never reflect without pity 
upon the long unhappy condition of that dusky race of four million 
of human souls, who, under a free government and in a Christian 
aee, have been chained down to the basest servitude ever known in 
the world. The strong may take care of themselves, but the weak 
ought to be helped. That is man's duty and God's example. The 
heavenly Father cares for all, but mostly for those who need most 
care. The Scriptures take no pains to say that He cares for such 
sparrows as are strong of wing, but tenderly mention that he cares 
for such as fall to the ground. If men, therefore, are of more value 
than many sparrows, will He not lift up that lowly multitude that so 
long have been bowed down to the ground? One day, while sitting 
in my office, I received from Mr. Greeley a hurried note, somewhat 
as follows: " My friend, read the enclosed, and if you can do any 
thing for the poor man, I know you will." The enclosed was a little 
bit of blue paper, sweat-stained, written upon in a scrawling, strag- 
gling hand, misspelled, and ran in this wise : " I am a fugitive slave 
in Canada. I came from Maryland five years ago, leaving my father 
behind me, an old man, of whom 1 cannot hear whether he is alive 
or dead. I have written many letters, but get no answers. What 
shall I do ? " This was the substance. After reading the note, I 
dropped it on my desk, saying, it is a hopeless case. In a few min- 
utes somebody knocked at my door, and in came an old, weather- 
beaten black man, white-haired and venerable. He was on his way 
from Maryland northward — for I never yet found any of that 
class of people on their way southward. His name was Samuil 



l-.ofC. 



100 THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THB 

GrREEN. The name in the letter was Henry Green. " Did you 
ever know a man by the name of Henry Green?" I asked. "I 
had a son,"' said he, " by that name. He ran out of slavery five 
years ago, and I never have heard from him since." " Now listen," 
said I ; and I read the letter to him, and watched his face. " It is 
my son," said he, " my son Henry ! " And that same evening the 
railroad train bore him northward, and on the second day afterward 
he kissed his son's cheek ! — a reunion as of two persons rising to 
meet each other from the grave, after five years of death ! Now, 
my friends, the same Divine Hand that brought together so strangely 
those two sundered hearts, is stretched out of the heavens for the help 
of all the sorrowing four million, and will, sooner or later, lead them 
every one into the " light and liberty of the sons of God." (Ap- 
plause.) For God and all good angels are working together for the 
eradication of slavery from this land. And we are near the day of 
victory. I am informed that an old man in this State, lying on his 
death-bed at the beginning of the year, was told by his family that 
the President had decreed liberty to the slaves. " Read me the 
Proclamation," said he ; and after it was read, he folded his feeble 
hands, saying, " Now, Lord, lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, 
for mine eyes have beheld the salvation of my country." Shortly 
afterward he died — leaving the nation to a new and nobler life. 
But we must not flatter ourselves that the work is already done, or 
will be done to-morrow or the next day. It may be that the shadow 
of war on the land has not yet grown as dark as God means it. It 
may be that we have not yet suffered enough for purification — for 
we are refined by fire, and disciplined by sorrow. But even though 
it be by the path of blood and tears, let us thank God that, by any 
path, he is leading the nation forward to liberty. 

This Convention has been one of good cheer. It has ministered 
refreshment to my soul. There has been an Indian Summer in its 
atmosphere which has warmed my blood, and quickened my pulse. 
But I have been so over-filled with a strong sympathy that my mind 
has been robbed and dispossessed of all the thoughts that a better for- 
tune might have thrown into my remarks. I know it is said that 
" out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh," yet one 
might make another proverb, and say, " Out of the ow?*-abundance 
of the heart the mouth would hold its peace." And now, my friends, 
while we are having the baptism of fire and blood in the land, let us 
have the baptism of the Holy Ghost in our souls. 0, sir, when one 



AMEHICAN ANTI-SI.AVKRY SOCIKTY. 101 

looks at the magnitude of the cause, its moral grandeur, its infi- 
nite importance for humanity, and then looks at his own weak- 
ness in its advocacy, what can he do but cry out, " Who is suffi- 
cient for these things ? " What manner of man ought one to be who 
takes upon himself the championship of liberty ! How ought one to 
purge himself of all that is base and mean ! How clean and pure of 
soul ought to be the man who dares to rebuke a nation for its sin ! 
Let us look up into the heavens for the benediction of God upon us 
and upon our work. 

, " Anoint and cheer onr soiled face 

IVith the abundance of thy grace." 

Time flies. Clarkson and Wilbekforce are in their graves, but 
their names are precious. The verierable men on this platform shaJl 
sooner or later follow, leaving behind them like precious names. 
For there are some within the sound of my voice whose names shall 
be as enduring as American history. Yet it makes very little differ- 
ence who shall be remembered or who forgotten; for when these 
present storms shall give way to blue skies — when the fields now 
red with blood shall be green with peace — when every chain shall 
be broken, and every slave shall offer thanksgiving — all true soulsi, 
forgetting the mere human instruments of the Divine will, will cry 
out, " Not unto us, not unto us, but unto thy name be the victory, 
Lord God of Hosts!" (Applause.) 

The President, For one, I am always rejoiced to hear of the 
success of any candidate, in any part of the country, who represents 
the idea of liberty. Whatever may be said with regard to his 
merely echoing public sentiment, one thing I know, that a man some- 
times comes into oiSce without losing his manhood, and keeps his 
integrity. We have such a man with us here to-night, in the person 
of Senator Wilson. He did not wait till the public sentiment was 
created, whereby he could safely aspire to public office; but long be- 
fore he ever di*eamed of ofiice, as early as 1836, his interest in the 
struggle for the abolition of slavery began, and has continued from 
that hour to this. If he has been Representative and Senator in 
Massachusetts, Senator in the United States Congress representing 
Massachusetts, and is there still, it is not because he has played the 
part of a demagogue, but because he has dared to speak the words 
of freedom, and to maintain the cause of the slave. (Applause.) 



102 THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 

SPEECH OF HON. HENRY WILSON. 

Mr. President : 

I came here to look into the faces and to hear the voices of the 
honored men who, thirty years ago, hxid the foundations of the Anti- 
Slavery movement in America upon the rights of human nature and 
the laws of the living Clod. Passing on to the post of duty assigned 
me in the councils of the Republic, I gladly pause to-day to pay the 
tribute of my sincere respect, gratitude and admiration to the men, 
and the women too, of the American Anti-Slavery Society, who, for 
a generation, have vindicated the proscribed cause of the bondmen of 
Christian America with a fidelity unsurpassed in any age or nation. 
(Applause.) I came here too, sir, to catch something of that spirit 
of self-sacrificing devotion to the cause of liberty and humanity that 
has animated you and the devoted friends who have gathered around 
you in the struggles of these thirty years. The President of the 
United States, as he stood the other day among the graves of the fal- 
len brave on the immortal field of Gettysburg, said that the lesson 
there taught should be an inspiration to greater efforts in the future, 
in the cause of our perilled country. This anniversary festival, sa- 
cred to the memories of past struggles, is to us an inspiration and a 
hope. I leave you to-night to go to the theatre of public duty, 
where anti-slavery men are to be tried as perhaps they were never 
tried before, inspired with the determination to do all that I can to 
break the last fetter of the last slave in the United States. (Long- 
continued applause.) 

You, Mr. President, were kind enough to say that, in political life, 
I did not wait for public opinion before committing myself to the 
sacred cause of equal and impartial liberty. On this occasion, when 
we may recur to the recollections and reminiscences of the past, 
I may be pardoned in saying that I was an anti-slavery man 
years before I entertained any political aspirations, or formed any 
political associations. In the Spring of 1836, I visited the capital 
of my country. Passing in the cars from Baltimore to Washington, 
I saw several slave women toiling in the fields. Turning to a gentle- 
man sitting by me, I expressed the opinion that slavery was an evil 
and a dishonor, and was told, rather sharply, that I " could not be 
permitted to express such an opinion in the State of Maryland." 
That was, perhaps, my first utterance against slavery, and the first 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 103 

rebuke I ever received for such an utterance. I went on to the cap- 
ital of my country. I saw slavery beneath the shadow of the flag 
that waved over the Capitol. I saw the slave-pen, and men and wo- 
men and children herded for the market of the far South ; and at the 
table at which sat Senator Morris, of Ohio, then the only avowed 
champion of freedom in the Senate of the United States, 1 expressed 
my abhorrence of slavery and the slave traffic in the capital of this 
Democratic and Christian Republic. I was promptly told that " Sen- 
ator Morris might be protected in speaking against slavery in the 
Senate, but I would not be protected in uttering such sentiments." I 
left the capital of my country with the unalterable resolution to give 
all that I had, and all that I hoped to have of power, to the cause of 
emancipation in Amei'ica ; and I have tried to make that resolution 
a living faith from that day to this. (Applause.) My political asso- 
ciations, from that hour to the present, have always been guided by 
my opposition to slavery, in every form, and they always will be so 
guided. lu twenty years of public life, I may have committed 
errors of judgment, but I have ever striven " to write my name," in 
the words of William Leggett, " in ineffaceable letters on the Abo- 
lition record." Standing here to-night, in the presence of veteran 
anti-slavery men, I can say, in all the sincerity of conviction, that I 
would rather have it written upon the humble stone that shall mark 
the spot where I shall repose when life's labors are done, " He did 
what he could to break the fetters of the slave," than to have it 
recorded, " He filled the highest stations of honor in the gift of his 
countrymen." (Loud applause.) 

As I have listened, Mr. President, here to-day to the reminiscen- 
ces of the past, I have iendeavored to realize the condition of the 
Anti-Slavery cause in America, when you, sir, and your associates, 
thirty years ago, founded here, in this city of Philadelphia, the 
American Anti-Slavery Society. When our fathers came out of the 
fiery trials of the Revolution, they believed that slavery would pass 
away under our republican institutions and Christian civilization ; 
but the spirit of the revolutionary era passed away as its champions 
passed from earth. When the American Anti-Slavery Society was 
formed, in 1833, the conquest and subjugation of the country by the 
slave-masters who had forgotten the teachings of the fathers was 
complete. Institutions of learning, of benevolence and religion, po- 
litical organizations and public men, all bowed in unresisting submis- 
sion to the iron will of the slave-masters who ruled the governments 



104 THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 

of the slaveliolding States, and shaped the policy of the Republic, 
"When you, sir, and your comrades organized the American Anti- 
Slavery Society, and proclaimed immediate emancipation to be the 
duty of the master and the right of the slave, you believed, in the 
bright ardor of that moment, that Christian America would respond 
to your noble appeals, would soon break every yoke, undo the heavy 
burdens, and let the oppressed go free. But the sentinels of the 
slave-masters sounded the alarm. They demanded that institutions 
of learning and religion, public men and the public press, should 
disown the heresy of immediate emancipation, and mark and brand 
its advocates. They demanded the suppression of freedom of discus- 
sion and the liberty of the press. Timid, nerveless conservatism 
cowered before the imperious demands of Southern slave-masters. 
The reign of terror was inaugurated, law was prostrated in the dust, 
and the friends of the slave held property, liberty, and life itself, at 
the mercy of lawless mobs, who set at defiance the laws of God, and 
the decencies of civilization. 

But, amid scenes of lawlessness, violence, social proscription, and 
official rebuke, the heroic men who inaugurated the Anti-Slavery 
movement did not quail or shrink from fearful conflicts, from which 
the timid instinctively recoiled. Their spirits rose and mantled as 
the storm of denunciation beat upon their devoted heads. They 
looked danger in the eye — they hurled defiance at arbitrary power. 
They saw with clear vision that the conflict was not a war of men, 
but of ideas and institutions. Like John Adams, they saw " through 
the gloom of the present, the rays of ravishing light and glory." 
They echoed the hopeful words of one of Freedom's poets — 

" The few shall not for ever sway, 
The many toil in sorrow ; 
The powers of hell are strong to-day, 
But Christ shall rise to-morrow." 

Confident of the future, sir, they reechoed your defiant words : 
" We are in earnest ; we will not equivocate ; we will not excuse ; 
we will not retreat a single inch ; and we will be heard ! " (Ap- 
plause.) Few in numbers, strong only in their principles and the 
potency of their measures, they began that conflict with the advanc- 
ing hosts of the legions of slavery, which has stirred the country to 
its profoundest depths for thirty years. Honored then, for ever hon- 
ored, be the men who, in the days of perilled liberty, when the 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERV SOCIETY. 105 

shadows of slavery were darkening all the land, " cast an arch," in 
the words of Matiianiel Peabody Rogers, "upon the horizon like a 
semi-circle of polar lights, and upon it bent the motto, ' Immediate 
Emancipation ! ' glorious as the rainbow," (Applause.) 

Great movements, affecting the relations of the people and of the 
nation, cannot be measured by the hours. By years, by epochs 
alone, can we measure the progressive advancement of a movement 
so grand and comprehensive as the Anti-Slavery movement in Amer- 
ica. What mighty changes have been wrought in the condition of 
the Anti-Slavery cause in the United States since the American Anti- 
Slavery Society was organized by representatives of ten States, in 
1833! Then a few unknown and nameless men were its apostles; 
now the most accomplished intellects in America are its champions. 
Then a few proscribed and hunted followers rallied around its ban- 
ners ; now it has laid its grasp upon the conscience of the nation, and 
millions rally around the folds of its flag. Then not a statesman in 
America accepted its doctrines or advocated its measures; now it 
controls more than twenty States, has a majority in both Houses of 
Congress, and the Chief Magistrate of the Republic decrees the 
emancipation of three millions of men. (Applause.) Then, every 
Free State was against it ; now. Western Virginia, Delaware, Mar^'- 
land and Missouri pronounce for the emancipation of their bondmen. 
Then the public press covered it with ridicule and contempt ; now the 
most powerful journals in America are its organs, scattering its 
truths broadcast over all the land. Then the religious, benevolent 
and literary institutions of the land rebuked its doctrines and pro- 
scribed its advocates ; now it shapes, moulds and fashions them at its 
pleasure. Then political organizations trampled disdainfully upon 
it; now it looks down in the pride of conscious power upon the 
wrecked political fragments that float at its feet. Then it was impo- 
tent and powerless ; now it holds public men and political organi- 
zations in the hollow of its hand. (Applause.) Then the public 
voice sneered at and defied it ; now it is master of America, and has 
only to be true to itself to bury slavery so deep that the hand of no 
returning despotism can reach it. (Great applause.) 

Mr. President, you and some others who founded the Society 
whose thirtieth anniversary you this day celebrate, have lived to see 
the sentiments embodied in your Declaration of Principles dissemi- 
nated all over the land, and accepted by the American people. A 
few mouths ago, this beautiful city of Philadelphia was believed to 

14 



106 THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 

be one of the most pro-slavery of the cities of the loyal States ; 
now, Philadelphia is the most loyal, is the most anti-slavery city of 
the Free States. But a few years ago, an anti-slavery man could 
hardly utter an anti-slavery sentiment in a political canvass without 
harm to his political friends. In the last canvass in this Common- 
wealth of Pennsylvania, in every portion of the State, the champions 
of the Government clearly and distinctly denounced slavery, and 
sustained the proclamation of Abraham Lincoln, emancipating more 
than three millions of men. (Applause.) Sir, it has been my fortune, 
during the last three months, to address my fellow-citizens in several 
of the States, and I am proud to say to you that the supporters of 
the Government have spoken as distinctly and clearly in favor of the 
extinction of slavery in America as do the men who surround me 
on this platform. The people see with clear vision that slavery is 
the rebellion ; that slavery has dug more than a hundred thousand 
graves of loyal men ; that slavery hates the country and its repub- 
lican institutions; and that mercy to slavery is a crime against our 
country. (Great applause.) 

I am, Mr. President, filled with hope and confidence in the future 
of my country, I belong not to that class of men who are wont to 
claim a victory before they have won it. I believe that victory is 
never sure, so long as there is any thing left undone to win it ; and I 
say to the anti-slavery men, and women too, that, while you have a 
clear right to be hopeful and confident of the future, you have a duty 
to perform that will test all your devotion, all your firmness, all your 
wisdom. We are to be tried — the Government is to be tried. It 
was suggested to-day that, should the rebels surrender, they would 
continue to hold their slaves as bondmen. I do not believe it — for 
I have faith in the American people, and I know they will never per- 
mit it. (Great enthusiasm.) But should Jeff. Davis and his com- 
peers in treason lay down their arms, you would see the Peace De- 
mocracy, that, during the last thirty years, has committed every 
crime slavery bade it commit — you would see that Democracy whose 
life is bound up in the existence of slavery, every where demand that 
slavery should live, and the slave-masters come back again to govern 
the Republic. And we should see timid men with us, but hardly 
of us, cowardly shrinking back, consenting to make an inglorious 
peace, and leave slavery to redden, in another age, as it has in this, 
the fields of America with the blood of patriotism. Yet, while we 
are to be tried, I believe we shall remain firm, true and faithful, and 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVEKY SOCIETY, 107 

that we shall triumph. The way to triumph is to assume that the 
proclamation of Abraham Lincoln, emancipating three millions 
three hundred thousand slaves in the ten rebel States, is the irrepcal- 
able law of this land ; that this Christian nation is pledged to every 
slave, to the country, to the world, and to Almighty God, to see that 
every one of these bondmen is free for ever and for evermore. 
(Grrcat applause.) Let the loyal men of America assume, as the 
irrevocable law of the land, that slavery does not now exist in the dis- 
loyal States ; and that every black man there is free. The President 
of the United States has pledged the physical power of all America 
to enforce the Proclamation of Freedom ; seven hundred thou- 
sand loyal bayonets bear that proclamation upon their glittering 
points. (Applause.) 

When the people of the United States, in November, 1860, 
thronged to the ballot-boxes, and, in spite of the menaces of the 
slave-masters, made Abraham Lincoln President of the United 
States, slavery cast the shadows of its power over the land. That 
towering fabric of strength and power is now shivered to atoms. 
Two questions only were settled by the election of 1860. The peo- 
ple pronounced against the spread of slavery into the Territories of 
the United States, and against the longer continuance of the rule of 
the Slave Power. Of slavery in the States we distinctly avowed 
we had no constitutional power to touch it. We said : " Slavery is 
the creature of local law ; we are opposed to it ; we will use our 
moral influence against it ; it shall not be extended ; we will not be 
ruled by it ; we will destroy its political power, and we believe that 
in one or two generations it will gradually pass away." The election 
of 1860 did not directly affect the existence of slavery in the States, 
where it stood in all its strength, protected by local legislation. But 
the slave-masters leaped into the rebellion to perpetuate slavery for 
ever, and to continue the rule of slave-masters, and the fires of the 
revolution they inaugurated are melting the chains of the bondman. 
I can never forget the dark days that followed the election of Abra- 
ham Lincoln. There was Buchanan, a poor, weak, imbecile old 
man, with Floyd stealing the public arms ; with Cobb breaking 
down the public credit; with Toucey sending the navy to distant 
seas ; with Thompson intriguing to dismember the country ; with 
Democratic leaders all over the North expressing sympathy with 
the rebel chiefs, assuring traitors that if the contest came to blows, 
the battle would be fought on Northern soil, with doubtful results. 



108 THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 

Timid, nerveless conservatism implored us to accept that wicked 
proposition — aje, sir, the most wicked proposition ever made in the 
Congress of the United States — the Crittenden compromise. But 
amid these scenes of treason, we calmly sat in the Congress of the 
United States, and bided our time. The President stole into Wash- 
ington to escape the steel of the assassib. We took possession of the 
Government. Slavery, in the pride of its power, opened its batteries 
upon Sumter, brought down the old flag, ran up the banner of rebel- 
lion, and proclaimed the dismemberment of the Republic. Two and 
a half years have passed away, and there stands a proclamation — 
never to be recalled or modified — making three millions three hun- 
dred thousand men in the rebel States free for evermore — (ap- 
plause) — there stands an act for ever prohibiting slavery in the vast 
Territories of the United States — (applause) — there stands an act 
abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia, and I thank God that 
he gave me the privilege of introducing the bill that abolished the 
cleaving curse in the capital of my country. (Three cheers for 
Henry Wilson were proposed by Fred. Douglass, and given by the 
audience.) There stands an act annulling the slave codes and black 
laws of the District of Columbia, making the black man amenable to 
the same laws, to be tried in the same manner, and to be subjected 
to the same punishment as white men ; and I am thankful that it was 
my privilege to introduce that measure of justice and humanity. 
(Applause.) There, too, stands an act, clothing the President with 
authority to place the sword, the rifle, the bayonet, and the flag, in 
the hands of black men, to fight the battles of the Republic. There 
is the recognition of the black Ptepublics of Hayti and Liberia — 
the treaty for the suppression of the African slave trade — the opin- 
ion of the Attorney-General that the black man is a citizen of the 
United States — and the passport of the Secretary of State, the evi- 
dence to the nations of the citizenship of men of the African race. 
(Applause.) Western Virginia has already pronounced the doom of 
her slavery. Little Delaware sends an Emancipationist to the House 
of Representatives. Maryland, under the lead of Henry Winter 
Davis — honored be his name! (cheers) — in utterances as clear and 
distinct as were ever pronounced, speaks for emancipation. Missouri, 
in spite of malign councils, votes for immediate emancipation, (ap- 
plause,) and Tennessee, under the lead of Andrew Johnson, is pre- 
paring to take her place in the lists of free Commonwealths. Ken- 
tucky, alone, bears the banner of slavery proudly and defiantly ; her 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLATERY SOCIETY. 109 

leading influences are against emancipation, but the people are fast 
ripening for it. They need only bold, earnest and determined lead- 
ers and organs to place her by the side of Pennsylvania, New York, 
and New England, ere another year shall pass away. 

The armies of the Republic have in the recent elections proclaimed 
their undying love of freedom, and their utter detestation of copper- 
head democracy. The armies are the most potent emancipation so- 
cieties in America. Our soldiers, in face of rebel legions, are fight- 
ing for liberty, speaking for liberty, and voting for liberty. The 
Government of the United States is indebted to our soldiers in the 
field for the recent victories of the ballot-bos, which have fallen 
with crushing weight upon the rebellion, and its sympathizing friends 
in the loyal States. Sir, I saw the other day a letter from General 
Grant, who has fought so many battles for the Republic, and won 
them all, (enthusiastic applause) — the hero who hurled his legions 
up the mountains before Chattanooga, and fought a battle for the 
Union above the clouds. (Applause.) The hero of Vicksburg says : 
" I have never been an anti-slavery man, but I try to judge justly 
of what I see. I made up my mind, when this war commenced, that 
the North and South could only live together in peace as one nation, 
and they could only be one nation by being a free nation. (Applause.) 
Slavery, the corner-stone of the so-called Confederacy, is knocked out, 
and it will take more men to keep black men slaves, than to put 
down the rebellion. Much as I desire peace, I am opposed to any 
peace until this question of slavery is for ever settled." That is the 
position of the leading General of our armies. The votes of our 
soldiers, in the States permitting them to vote, are more than nine to 
one for the prosecution of the war, and the enforcement of the Eman- 
cipation Proclamation of Abraham Lincoln. 

I say to you, sir, and to the anti-slavery men of the United 
States, ^rho have rejected the subtle policy of concession and compro- 
mise, who have repudiated the guilty delusion that the sin of slavery 
belongs to past generations and repentance to posterity, you who have 
perpetually sounded into the ear of the nation the sin of oppression 
and the duty of repentance, g© not home with the conviction that 
your work is done, but go home cheered by the assurance that the 
battle is going on for you ; that you have stormed battery after bat- 
tery, carried position after position ; that you have only to be as true 
in the future as you have been in the past, to secure a permanent and 
enduring triumph. If the nation had accepted your doctrine of 



110 THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 

peaceful, legal, Christian action, this bloody war would never have 
come upon us. (Applause.) The crimes of two centuries have 
brought this terrible war upon us ; but if this generation, upon whom 
God has laid His chastisements, will yet be true to liberty and hu- 
manity, peace will return again to bless this land, now rent and torn 
by civil strife. Then we shall heal the wounds of war, enlighten the 
dark intellect of the emancipated bondman, and make our country 
the model Republic to which the Christian world shall turn with re- 
spect and admiration. 

The speaker retired amid the deafening plaudits of the audience. 

Frederick Douglass, being seen on the platform, was called for 
by many persons in different parts of the Hall. As he came forward 
to speak, he was received with loud applause. 

SPEECH OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 

Ladies and Gentlemen : 

I confess, at the outset, to have felt a very profound desire to utter 
a word at some period during the present meeting. As it has been 
repeatedly said here, it has been a meeting of reminiscences. I shall 
not attempt to treat you to any of my own in what I have now to 
say, though I have some in connection with the labors of this Society, 
and in connection with my experience as an American slave, that I 
might not inappropriately bring before you on this occasion. I de- 
sire to be remembered among those having a word to say at this 
meeting, because I began my existence as a free man in this country 
with this association, and because I have some hopes or apprehensions, 
whichever you please to call them, that we shall never, as a Society, 
hold another decade meeting. 

I well remember the first time I ever listened to the voice of the 
honored President of this association, and I have some recollection of 
the feelings of hope inspired by his utterances at that time. Under 
the inspiration of those hopes, I looked forward to the abolition of 
slavery as a certain event in the course of a very few years. So 
clear were his utterances, so simple and truthful, and so adapted, I 
conceived, to the human heart were the principles and doctrines 
propounded by him, that I thought five years, at any rate, would 
be all that would be required for the abolition of slavery. I 
thought it was only necessary for the slaves, or their friends, to 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVJiRY SOCIETY. Ill 

lift up the hatchway of slavery's infernal hold, to uncover the bloody 
scenes of American thraldom, and give the nation a peep into its hor- 
rors, its deeds of deep damnation, to arouse them to almost phrensied 
opposition to this foul curse. But I was mistaken. I had not been 
five years pelted by the mob, insulted by the crowds, shunned by the 
Church, denounced by the ministry, ridiculed by the press, spit upon 
by the loafers, before I became convinced that I might perhaps live, 
struggle, and die, and go down to my grave, and the slaves of the 
South yet remain in their chains. 

We live to see a better hope to-night. I participate in the pro- 
found thanksgiving expressed by all, that we do live to see this better 
day. I I am one of those who believe that it is the mission of this war 
to free every slave in the United States. I am one of those who be- 
lieve that we should consent to no peace which shall not be an Aboli- 
tion peace. II am, moreover, one of those who believe that the work 
of the American Anti-Slavery Society will not have been completed 
until the black men of the South, and the black men of the North, 
shall have been admitted, fully and completely, into the body politic 
of America. I look upon slavery as going the way of all the earth. 
It is the mission of the war to put it down. But a mightier work 
than the abolition of slavery now looms up before the Abolitionist. 
This Society was organized, if I remember rightly, for two distinct 
objects ; one was the emancipation of the slave, and the other the 
elevation of the colored people. When we have taken the chains 
off the slave, as I believe we shall do, we shall find a harder resist- 
ance to the second purpose of this great association than we have 
found even upon slavery itself. • 

I am hopeful ; but while I am hopeful, I am thoughtful withal. If 
I lean to either side of the controversy to which we have listened to- 
day, I lean to that side which implies caution, which implies appre- 
hension, which implies a consciousness that our work is not done. 
Protest, aifirm, hope, glorify as we may, it cannot be denied that 
Abolitionism is still unpopular in the United States. It cannot be 
denied that this war is at present denounced by its opponents as an 
Abolition war ; and it is equally clear that it would not be denounced 
as an Abolition war, if Abolitionism was not odious. It is equally 
clear that our friends, Republicans, Unionists, Loyalists, would not 
spin out elaborate explanations and denials that this is the character 
of the war, if Abolition were popular. Men accept the terra Aboli- 
tionist with qualifications. They do not come out square and open- 



112 THIRTIETH ANNIVERSAUY OF THE 

handed, and affirm themselves to be Abolitionists. As a general 
rule, we are attempting to explain away the charge that this is an 
Abolition war. I hold that it is an Abolition war, because slavery 
has proved itself stronger than the Constitution; it has proved 
itself stronger than the Union ; and has forced upon us the necessity 
of putting down slavery in order to save the Union, and in order to 
save the Constitution. (Applause.) 

I look at this as an Abolition war instead of being a Union war, 
because I see that the lesser is included in the greater, and that you 
cannot have the lesser until you have the greater. You cannot have 
the Uaion, the Constitution, and Republican institutions, until you 
have stricken down that damning curse, and put it beyond the pale 
of the Republic. For, while it is in this country, it will make your 
Union impossible ; it will make your Constitution impossible. I 
therefore call this just what the Democrats have charged it with 
being, an Abolition war. Let us emblazon it on our banners, and 
declare before the world that this is an Abolition war, (applause,) that 
it will prosper precisely in proportion as it takes upon itself this 
character. (Renewed applause.) 

My respected friend, Mr. Puiivis, called attention to the existence 
of prejudice against color in this country. This gives me great 
cause for apprehension, if not for alarm. I am afraid of this power- 
ful element of prejudice against color. While it exists, I want the 
voice of the American Anti-Slavery Society to be continually pro- 
testing, continually exposing it. While it can be said that in this 
most anti-slavery city in the Northern States of our Union, in the 
city of Philadelphia, the city of JJrotherly Love, the city of churches, 
the city of piety, the most genteel and respectable colored lady 
or gentleman may be kicked out of your commonest street car, we 
are in danger of a compromise. While it can be said that black 
men, fighting bravel}^ for this country, are asked to take seven dol- 
lars per month, while the Government lays down as a rule or crite- 
rion of pay a complexional one, we are in danger of a compromise. 
While to be radical is to be unpopular, we are in danger of a com- 
promise. While we have a large minority called Democratic, in 
every State of the North, we have a powerful nucleus for a most 
infernal reaction in favor of slavery. I know it is said that we have 
recently achieved vast political victories. I am glad of it. I value 
these victories, however, more for what they have prevented than for 
what they have actually accomplished. I should have been doubly 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLATERT SOCIETY. 113 

sad at seeing any one of these States wheel into line with the Peace 
Democracy. But, however it may be in the State of Pennsylvania, 
I know that you may look for abolition in the creed of any party in 
New York with a microscope, and you will not find a single line of 
anti-slavery there. The victories were Union victories, victories to 
save the Union in such ways as the country may devise to save it. 
But whatever may have been the meaning of these majorities in 
regard to the Union, we know one thing, that the minorities, at 
least, mean slavery. They mean submission. They mean the deg- 
radation of the colored man. They mean every thing but open rebel- 
lion against the Federal Government in the North. But the mob, 
the rioters in the city of New York, convert that city into a hell, and 
its lower orders into demons, and dash out the brains of little chil- 
dren against the curbstones ; and they mean any thing and every 
thing that the Devil exacts at their hands. While we had in this 
State a majority of but 15,000 over this pro-slavery Democratic 
party, they have a mighty minority, a dangerous minority. Keep 
in mind when these minorities were gotten. Powerful as they are, 
they were gotten when slavery, with bloody hands, was stabbing at 
the very heart of the nation itself. With all that disadvantage, they 
have piled up these powerful minorities. 

We have work to do, friends and fellow-citizens, to look after 
these minorities. The day that shall see Jeff. Davis fling down his 
Montgomery Constitution, and call home his Generals, will be the 
most trying day to the virtue of this people that this country has 
ever seen. When the slaveholders shall give up the contest, and ask 
for readmission into the Union, then, as Mr. Wilson has told us, we 
shall see the trying time in this country. Your Democracy will 
clamor for peace, and for restoring the old order of things, because 
that old order of things was the life of the Democratic party. " You 
do take away mine house, when you take away the prop that sustains 
my house," and the support of the Democratic party we all know to 
be slavery. The Democratic party is for war for slavery; it is for 
peace for slavery ; it is for the habeas corpus for slavery ; it is 
against the habeas corpus for slavery ; it was for the Florida war 
for slavery ; it was for the Mexican war for slavery ; it is for jury 
trial for traitors, for slavery ; it is against jury trial for men claimed 
as fugitive slaves, for slavery. It has but one principle, one master; 
and it is guided, governed, and directed by it. 1 say that, with this 
party among us, flaunting its banners in our faces, with the New 
15 



114 THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 

York World scattered broadcast over the North, -with the New York 
Express, with the mother and father and devil of tliem all, the New 
York Herald, (applause,) with those papers flooding our land, and 
coupling the term Abolitionist with all manner of coarse epithets, 
in all our hotels, at all our crossings, our highways and byways and 
railways all over the country, there is work to be dene — a good deal 
of work to be done. 

I have said that our work will not be done until the colored man 
is admitted a full member in good and regular standing in the Amer- 
ican body politic. Men have very nice ideas about the body politic 
where I have travelled ; and they don't like the idea of having the 
negro in the body politic. He may remain in this country, for he 
will be useful as a laborer — valuable, perhape, in time of trouble, as 
a helper ; but to make him a full and complete citizen, a legal voter, 
that would be contaminating the body politic. I was a little curious, 
some years ago, to find out what sort of a thing this body politic was ; 
and I was very anxious to know especially about what amount of 
baseness, brutality, coarseness, ignorance, and bestiality could find 
its way into the body politic; and I was not long in finding it out. 
I took my stand near the little hole through which the body politic 
put its votes. (Laughter.) And first among the mob I saw Igno- 
rance, unable to read its vote, asking me to read it, by the way, 
(great laughter,) depositing its vote in the body politic. Next I saw 
a man stepping up to the body politic, casting in his vote, having a 
black eye, and another one ready to be blacked, having been engaged 
in a street' fight. I saw, again, Pat, fresh from the Emerald Isle, 
with the delightful brogue peculiar to him, stepping up — not walking, 
but leaning upon the arms of two of his friends, unable to stand, 
passing into the body politic ! I came to the conclusion that this 
body politic was, after all, not quite so pure a body as the represent- 
ations of its friends would lead us to believe. 

I know it will be said that I ask you to make the black man a 
voter in the South. Yet you are for having brutality and ignorance 
introduced into the ballot-box. It is said that the colored man is 
ignorant, and therefore he shall not vote. In saying this, you lay 
down a rule for the black man that you apply to no other class of 
your citizens. I will hear nothing of degradation or of ignorance 
against the black man. If he knows enough to be hanged, he knows 
enough to vote. If he knows an honest man from a thief, ho 
knows much more than some of our white voters. If he knows 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 115 

as much when sober as an Irishman knows when drunk, he 
knows enough to vote. If" he knows enough to take up arms in 
defence of this Government, and bare his breast to the storm of 
rebel artillery, he knows enough to vote. (Great applause.) 

Away with this talk of the want of knowledge on the part of the 
negro ! I am about as big a negro as 3'ou will find any where about 
town ; and any man that does not believe I know enough to vote, let 
him try it. I think I can convince him that I do. Let him run for 
office in my district, and solicit my vote, and I will show him. 

All I ask, however, in regard to the blacks, is that whatever rule 
you adopt, whether of intelligence or wealth, as the condition of 
voting, you shall apply it equally to the black man. Do that, and 
I am satisfied, and eternaj justice is satisfied ; liberty, fraternity, 
equality, are satisfied ; and the country will move on harmoniously. 

Mr. President, I have a patriotic argument iu favor of insisting 
upon the immediate enfranchisement of the slaves of the South ; and 
it is this. When this rebellion shall have been put down, when the 
arms shall have fallen from the guilty hands of traitors, you will 
need the friendship of the slaves of the South, of those millions there. 
Four or five million men are not of inconsiderable importance at any 
time ; but they will be doubly important when you come to reorgan- 
ize and reestablish republican institutions in the South. Will you 
mock those bondmen by breaking their chains Avith one hand, and with 
the other giving their re'nel masters the elective franchise, and rob- 
bing them of theirs ? I tell you the negro is your friend. You will 
n)ake him your friend by emancipating him. But you will make 
him not only your friend in sentiment and heart by enfranchising 
hiin, but you will make him your best defender, your best protector 
against the traitors and the descendants of those traitors, who will 
inherit the hate, the bitter revenge which will crystallize ail over the 
South, and seek to circumvent the Government that they could not 
throw off. You will need the black man there, as a watchman and 
patrol ; and you may need him as a soldier. You may need him to 
uphold in peace, as he is now upholding in war, the star-spangled 
banner. (Applause.) I wish our excellent friend, Senator Wilson, 
would bend his energies to this point as well as the other — to let the 
negro have a vote. It will be helping him from the jaws of the 
wolf. We are surrounded by those that, like the wolf, will use their 
jaws, if you give the elective franchise to the descendants of the 
traitors, and keep it from the black man. We ought to be the voters 



116 THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 

there. We ought to be members of Congress. (Applause.) You 
may as well make up your minds that you have got to see something 
dark down that way. There is no way to get rid of it. I am a can- 
didate already ! (Laughter and applause.) 

For twenty-five years,' Mr. President, you know that when I got as 
far South as Philadelphia, I felt that I was rubbing against my 
prison wall, and could not go any further. I dared not go over yon- 
der into Delaware. Twenty years ago, when I attended the first 
decade meeting of this Society, as I came along the vales and hills 
of Gettysburg, my good friends, the anti-slavei'y people along there, 
warned me to remain in the house during the day-time, and travel in 
the night, lest I should be kidnapped, and carried over into Mary- 
land. My good friend, Dr. Fussell, was one of the number who did 
not think it safe for me to attend an Anti-Slavery meeting along the 
borders of this State. I can go down there now. I have been down 
there to see the President ; and as you were not there, perhaps you 
may like to know how the President of the United States received a 
black man at the White House. I will tell you how he received 
me — just as you have seen one gentleman receive another (great 
applause) ; with a hand and a voice well-balanced between a kind 
cordiality and a respectful reserve. I tell you I felt big there ! 
(Laughter.) Let me tell you how I got to him ; because everybody 
can't get to him. He has to be a little guarded in admitting specta- 
tors. The manner of getting to him gave me an idea that the cause 
was rolling on. The stairway was crowded with applicants. Some 
of them looked eager ; and I have no doubt some of them had a pur- 
pose in being there, and wanted to see the President for the good of 
the country ! They were white ; and as I was the only dark spot 
among them, I expected to have to wait at least half a day; I had 
heard of men waiting a week ; but in two minutes after I sent in my 
card, the messenger came out, and respectfully invited " Mr. Doug- 
lass " in. I could hear, in the eager multitude outside, as they saw 
me pressing and elbowing my way through, the remark, " Yes, damn 
it, I knew they would let the nigger through," in a kind of despair- 
ing voice — a Peace Democrat, I suppose. (Laughter.) When I 
went in, the President was sitting in his usual position, I was told, 
with his feet in different parts of the room, taking it easy. (Laugh- 
ter.) Don't put this down, Mr, Reporter, I pray you ; for I am 
going down there again to-morrow ! (Laughter.) As I came in 
and approached him, the President began to rise, (laughter,) and he 



AMEKICAN ANTI-SLAVERY gOCIETY. 117 

continued rising until he stood over me (laughter) ; and, reaching out 
his hand, he said, " Mr. Douglass, I know you ; I have read about 
you, and Mr. Seward has told me about you " ; })utting me quite at 
ease at once. 

Now, you will want to know how I was impressed by him. I will 
tell you that, too. He impressed me as being just what every one 
of you have been in the habit of calling him — an honest- man. (Ap- 
plause.) I never met with a man, who, on the first blush, impressed 
me more entirely with his sincerity, with his devotion to his country, 
and with his determination to' save it at all hazards. (Applause.) 
He told me (I think he did me more honor than I deserve) that I 
had made a little speech, somewhere in New York, and it had got 
into the papers, and among the things I had said was this : That if 
I were called upon to state what I regarded as the most sad and 
most disheartening feature in our present political and military situ- 
ation, it would not be the various disasters experienced by our armies 
and our navies, on flood and field, but it would be the tard}', hesitat- 
ing, vacillating policy of the President of the United States ; 
and the President said to me, " Mr. Douglass, I have been charged 
with being tardy, and the like " ; and he went on, and partly admit- 
ted that he might seem slow ; but he said, " I am charged with va- 
cillating; but, Mr. Douglass, I do not think that charge can be sus- 
tained ; I think it cannot be shown that when I have once taken a 
position, I have ever retreated from it." (Applause.) That I re- 
garded as the most significant point in what he said during our inter- 
view. I told him that he had been somewhat slow in proclaiming 
equal protection to our colored soldiers and prisoners ; and he said 
that the country needed talking up to that point. He hesitated in 
regard to it, when he felt that the country was not ready for it. He 
knew that the colored man throughout this country was a despised 
man, a hated man, and that if he at first came out with such a 
proclamation, all the hatred which is poured on the head of the 
negro race would be visited on his administration. He said that 
there was preparatory work needed, and that that preparatory work 
had now been done. And he said, " Remember this, Mr. Douglass ; 
remember that Milliken's Bend, Port Hudson and Fort Wagner are 
recent events ; and that these were necessary to prepare the way for 
this very proclamation of mine," I thought it was reasonable, but came 
to the conclusion that while Abraham Lincoln will not go down to 
posterity as Abraham the Great, or as Abraham the Wise, or as 



118 THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 

Abraham the Eloquent, although he is all three, wise, great and elo- 
quent, he will go down to posterity, if the country is saved, as Hon- 
est Abraham (applause) ; and going down thus, his name may be 
written any where in this wide world of ours side by side with that 
of Washington, without disparaging the latter. (Renewed applause.) 
But we are not to be saved by the captain, at this time, but by the 
crew. We are not to be saved by Abraham Lincoln, but by that 
power behind the throne, greater than the throne itself. You and I 
and all of us have this matter in hand. Men talk about saving the 
Union, and restoring the Union as it was. They delude themselves 
with the miserable idea that that old Union can be brought to life 
again. That old Union, whose canonized bones we so quietly inurncd 
under the shattered walls of Sumter, can never come to life again. 
It is dead, and you cannot put life in it. The first ball shot at Sum- 
ter caused it to fall as dead as the body of Julius Catsar, when stab- 
bed by Brutus. We do not want it. We have outlived the old 
Union. We had outlived it long before the rebellion came to tell 
us — I mean the Union, under the old pro-slavery interpretation of 
it — and had become ashamed of it. . The South hated it with our 
anti-slavery interpretation, and the North hated it with the Southern 
interpretation of its requirements. We had already come to think 
with horror of the idea of being called upon, here in our churches and 
literary societies, to take up arms, and go down South and pour the 
leaden death into the breasts of the slaves, in case they should rise for 
liberty ; and the better part of the people did not mean to do it. They 
shuddered at the idea of so sacrilegious a crime. They had already 
become utterly disgusted with the idea of plaving the part of blood- 
hounds for the slave-masters, watch-dogs for the plantations. They 
had come to detest the principle upon which the Slave States had a 
larger representation in Congress than the Free States. They had 
already come to think that the little finger of dear old John Brown 
was worth more to the world than all the slaveholders in Virginia 
put together. (Applause.) What business, then, have we to fight 
for the old Union? We are not fighting for it. We are fighting 
for something incomparably better than the old Union. We are 
fighting for unity ; unity of idea, unity of sentiment, unity of object, 
unity of institutions, in which there shall be no North, no South, no 
East, no West, no black, no white, but a solidarity of the nation, 
making every slave free, and every free man a voter. (Great ap- 
plause.) 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 119 



TRIBUTE TO GEORGE THOMPSON. 

The President — In 1830, when the great struggle was going on 
in England for the abolition of slavery in the West Indies, a young 
man made his appearance in London, and presented himself at the 
office of the Anti-Slavery Society, proposing to become a lecturer in 
the field. He was accepted, and went forth and vindicated the right 
of the slave to his freedom, and held up to the abhorrence of the 
English people the sin and the shame of West India slavery. Hav- 
ing seen that struggle successfully through, and carried through 
partly by his own efforts, on invitation from me, I being on that side 
of the Atlantic at the time, he generously turned his back on his 
well-won popularity and brightening prospects, and came over to our 
country to plead the same cause, and for the same class of victims, 
essentially, to be redeemed from the horrors of slavery, and to help 
make our land free, great and glorious. He came over in 1834, and 
was mobbed and hunted like a partridge on the mountains wherever 
he travelled. His words were irresistible ; his eloquence was potent ; 
and the enemies of emancipation knew full well that if he were per- 
mitted to have the ear of the people, he would sweep the whole coun- 
try with the power of Niagara. And therefore they sought his life, 
and it was with the greatest difficulty that he got out of the country, 
and that his life was thereby saved. 

In 1850, the same noble advocate of freedom ventured once more 
to come over to America, and make us a visit. He was then a mem- 
ber of Parliament, representing the Tower Hamlets, and his recep- 
tion was in many respects indicative of a very great and cheering 
change of public sentiment. Still he was dogged and hooted at, 
clamored down in public meetings, and every insult was heaped upon 
him by the enemies of emancipation. 

The same individual contemplates coming to our country in the 
coui'se of the present month, to begin the joyous new year with us, 
and to give us his congratulations in view of the progress of our 
glorious cause, and once more look into the faces of his old friends. 
(Applause.) I therefore offer the following resolution to the Society : 

Resolved, That this meeting, learning that it is the purpose of our 
honored and well-tried trans-Atlantic friend and coadjutor, George 
Thompson, soon to revisit this country, extends to him in advance 
fraternal welcome and warm congratulation ', and, voluntarily couse- 



120 THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OP THE 

crating himself, as he has done, for nearly three years past, in the 
most generous, disinterested and self-sacrificing manner, to the ser- 
vice of our country and the support of the American Government, 
and to the work of thwarting the insidious machinations of rebel 
emissaries abroad, and stimulating the popular sentiment of England 
to proclaim its abhorrence of this accursed Slaveholders' Rebellion, 
and to compel the British Government to withhold all recognition of 
the independence of the Southern Confederacy, we feel that we may 
assure him, in behalf of all loyal men in the country, a grateful 
recognition of his patriotic services, and a flattering ovation wherever 
he may have an opportunity to address them. 

The resolution was unanimously adopted. 

TRIBUTE TO BENJAMIN LUNDY. 

The President. During our meetings, our friends have been 
giving reminiscences; and if you will allow me, for a moment, to 
revert to the past, I will tell you how I became an Abolitionist, that 
honor may be given to whom honor is due, to one whose memory 
ought to be preserved to the latest generation as the distinguished 
pioneer in this great struggle. 

In 1827, I went to Boston, and edited a paper called The National 
Philanthropist. It was devoted to the cause of Temperance. Up to 
that hour, I had known little or nothing of slavery, as to the number 
of slaves held, or as to where they were held. So completely had 
the whole question been put out of sight, that I was almost wholly 
ignorant in respect to it. Among my exchange papers I received a 
little dingy monthly periodical, called the Genius of Universal 
Emancipation, published in the city of Baltimore, by Benjamin 
LuNDY, a member of the Society of Friends. On reading it, my 
attention was instantly arrested, and my interest strongly awakened. 
I was beginning to be initiated in the broad and good work of re- 
form. As I read it, my heart was touched, and my understanding en- 
lightened. I wrote for my paper a friendly notice of the publication, 
and again and again referred to it. After a little while, who should 
knock at the door of our house but Benjamin Lundy, from Balti- 
more, very desirous to see me, on an anti-slavery mission to Boston ? 
Then I had an opportunity to become personally acquainted with 
him, and from his own lips to gain that information of which I was 
so destitute. He warmed my heart and fired my spirit ; and I did 
at that time all I could to facilitate the object of his visit by 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 121 

getting up anti-slavery meetings for him, obtaining subscribers for 
bis paper, etc., etc. 

In 1828, I went to Bennington, Vt., and edited a paper called 
The Journal of the*Times, which was in part a political and in 
part a reformatory paper. When the gentlemen came to me from 
Vermont to see if I would edit the paper, they told me it was 
to be in support of the election of John Quincy Adams as against 
Andrew Jackson ; and as I was decidedly in favor of Mr. Adams, 
and had some distrust of military men, I could readily accede 
to their views. But I said. Gentlemen, if I go, I must have the lib- 
erty of advocating in the columns of the paper the Anti-Slavery 
cause, the Temperance cause, the Peace cause, and the cause of 
Moral Reform. It was a very singular kind of political paper ; but 
they gave me carte blanche, and I agreed to undertake the enter- 
prise. The anti-slavery feeling which I had imbibed in Boston was 
growing more and more in my soul, and I wrote more and more on 
that subject for my paper. The consequence was, that one day who 
should present himself again at my door but Benjamin Lundy, of 
Baltimore? He had taken his staff in hand, and travelled all the 
way to the Green Mountains. He came to lay it on my conscience 
and my soul that I should join him in this work of seeking the ab- 
olition of slavery ; and he so presented the case, with the growing 
disposition that I had to take hold of the cause, that I said to him, 
" I will join you as soon as my engagement ends here; and then 
we will see what can be done." 

The proposition upon his part was, that we should convert the lit- 
tle monthly into a large and handsome weekly paper. I was to be 
the principal editor, while he was to be a travelling editor and lec- 
turer, for the purpose of diffusing information and getting subscri- 
bers. But he did not assist me a great deal in that way, because, as 
soon as I got to Baltimore, I had my eyes opened in regard to the 
absurdity and delusion of gradual emancipation ; and I said to my 
friend Lundy, "If I join you now, I must hoist the banner of imme- 
diate, unconditional, everlasting emancipation." (Applause.) He 
said, " Very well ; write as you choose ; and as you feel that you 
must go for Immediate Emancipation, put your initials to your arti- 
cles, and I will put my initials to mine; and then the readers will 
know how to divide the responsibility between us." To this I agreed. 
But I drove off subscribers four or five times as fast as he could get 
them ! From the moment that the doctrine of Immediate Emanci- 
16 



122 THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 

pation was enunciated in the columns of the Genius, as it had not 
been up to that hour, it was like a bombshell in the camp of 
the subscribers themselves ; and from every direction letters poured 
in that they had not bargained for such a papA- as that, or for such 
doctrines, and they desired to have no more copies sent to them. So 
that the experiment failed, and we had to separate. Benjamin 
LuNDY took his paper, and had it transformed again into a little 
monthly, which afterwards passed from his hands, and became The 
Fennsylvania Freeman. 

Now, if I have in any way, however humble, done any thing 
toward calling attention to the question of slavery, or bringing 
about the glorious prospect of a complete jubilee in our country at 
no distant day, I feel that I owe every thing in this matter, instru- 
mentally, and under GtOD, to Benjamin Lundy. For had it not been 
for him, I know not where I should have been at the present time. 
My eyes might have been sealed for my whole lifetime, and, possibly, 
though I trust in God I could not have been, I might have been led 
off, in some direction or other, so far as even to care nothing for sla- 
very in our country. I feel it due to the memory of one who devoted 
go many years of his life so faithfully to the cause of the oppressed, 
that I should state this reminiscence. 

Mr. Garrison, after paying this tribute to Mr. Lundy, closed his 
address as follows : — 

It has been very pleasant to me to see how united we have been 
all the way through this meeting ; not one, apparently, disposed to 
censure any thing said here in favor of universal liberty. It is 
very pleasant indeed to my spirit. Sometimes, I know, eggs and 
brickbats are to be preferred to popular good-will and approval. 
Sometimes popular good-will and approval are to be preferred to 
rotten eggs and brickbats. Other things being equal, popular good- 
will and approval are preferable to brickbats and rotten eggs. As 
no principle has been compromised, as we have been faithful to 
our duty, as we have endeavored to remember those in bonds as 
bound with them, it is cheering to see this large assembly, and the 
tens and hundreds of thousands elsewhere, all mingling together, 
forgetting the things that are behind, and pressing onward to the 
mark of our high calling — immediate and everlasting emancipation. 
(Applause.) 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 123 

Two or three questions, and I conclude : Do you wish to see this 
rebellion put down? [Voices — "Yes," "Yes."] What is it in 
this country that has rebelled ? Is it freedom ? ["No."] Then it is 
slavery that is in rebellion, is it not ? [" Yes."] Are you for the ab- 
olition of slavery? ["Yes," "Yes."] So am I; it is a unanimous 
vote. Amen and amen ; glory, hallelujah ! (Applause.) In car- 
rying this thing through, though at first it must be through the des- 
olation of war by the depravity and fiendish obstinacy of the South, 
carrying it through will not be to curse the South, but to bless her 
with freedom and free institutions, free speech, a free press, free men, 
and free laborers, to open the windows of heaven, and to cause God 
to pour down his blessings, so that there shall not be room to contain 
them. O, the glorious prospect beyond this war ! — the glorious 
hope of thus repaying the South for her oppression, not with ven- 
geance, but with love and good-will ! We are struggling to save the 
slaveholders as men. W^e are struggling to redeem the slaves as 
men. In their redemption, the land shall be redeemed, and God 
shall be our God, and peace shall be all through our borders, from 
the Atlantic to the Pacific, and there shall be none to molest or to 
make afraid. Our work is before us, not completed, as has well and 
often been said to-day. It is going on. We will not yield one jot 
or tittle ; we will not grow weary until every slave is free. 

" Gray Plymouth Rock hath yet a tongue, 

And Concord is not dumb ; 
And voices from our fathers' graves 

And from the future come ; 
They call on us to stand our ground ; 

They charge us still to be 
Not only free from chains ourselves. 

But foremost to make free." 

Anne Dickinson followed with a glowing and eloquent appeal, of 
which, as we have no adequate report, we will not attempt to give a 
sketch. Suffice it to say, that she was received with great enthusi- 
asm, and that her remarks gave great pleasure to the crowded as- 
sembly. 

The Society then adjourned, sine die. 



124 THIRTIETH ANNIVKKSARY OF THE 

ANNALS OF WOMEN'S ANTI-SLAVEEY SOCIETIES. 

BY MAKY GREW, OF PHILADELPHIA.* 

The trumpet-call which, thirty years ago, summoned the American 
people to moral warfare against the system of American slavery, 
aroused in the souls of a few earnest women a consciousness of per- 
sonal responsibility for the existence of that great national sin, and a 
consciousness of power to promote its overthrow. They clearly per- 
ceived, both intellectually and spiritually, that the truth of the inhe- 
rent sinfulness of slavery, and the correlative right and duty between 
the slave and his master of immediate emancipation, were the only 
principles which could permanently vivify an enterprise for the de- 
struction of a system intimately inwrought with the political, reli- 
gious, and social life of the nation. Their first step was to organize 
themselves for effective effort for the promulgation of these truths. 

Previous to the organization of the American Anti-Slavery Soci- 
ety, two Female Anti-Slavery Societies were formed in Massachu- 
setts ; the first, in Reading, in the month of March, 1833; the sec- 
ond, in Boston, in October of the same year. In December following, 
the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society was organized, and at 
about the same time, the Female Anti-Slavery Society of Amesbury, 
Mass. During the few years immediately following, numerous 
State, County, and City Anti-Slavery Societies were formed through- 
out the Free States, both East and West, and among them were 
many organizations of women. Of these were the Concord, Lynn, 
Providence, Brooklyn, New York, Pittsburg, and Massillon Female 
Anti-Slavery Societies. All these associations were auxiliary in fact, 
and many of them in name, to the American Anti-Slavery Society; 
based upon the same principles, working with the same measures, and 
inspired by the same hope. An examination of early anti-slavery 
records reveals the fact that many of these women were active and 
influential members of churches of various denominations, who 
brought into this new enterprise the energy, zeal, and executive abil- 
ity acquired in their ecclesiastical and moral training; and that they 
began their work in confident faith that a general dissemination of 
the truth relative to the character of American slavery would speed- 

* This paper was read to the Society, by Miss Gkew, on the afternoon of the first 
d:iy '^^ ^''"^ meeting. 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 125 

ily array the power of these churches against a system essentially 
anti-Christian. It cannot be claimed for them that they counted the 
cost of the warfare upon which they were entering, nor the number 
of the years which lay stretched out in the dim future, between their 
•first battle and their final victory. It was well for them, well for 
the cause to which they had vowed allegiance, that this knowledge 
lay beyond their reach. The soul that would not have fainted or fal- 
tered before the prefigured vision of that long period of toil and 
strife, was, yet, stronger for the buoyant hope of early victory, and 
addressed itself to the labors of each successive year all the more 
ardently for the bright possibility that its close might usher in the 
jubilee. 

As they went on, they found their work widening, their responsi- 
bility deepening, at every step. It is now a page of history, it was 
then a startling revelation daily made, a painful experience daily 
borne, that the churches which had nurtured their sons and daugh- 
ters on the words of Christian love and human brotherhood, had 
no desire to see them practically illustrated towards the slave or the 
negro. With more of keen disappointment and sorrow than of indig- 
nation did we look on the strange spectacle of the American Church 
standing by to keep the garments of an enraged populace, stoning 
the Stephens of that martyr age. 

In October, 1835, the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society learned 
what was the degree of free speech which Massachusetts would allow 
and protect. Their announcement of their Annual Meeting to be 
held at Congress Hall for the transaction of business, elicited threat- 
ening and scurrilous articles from the daily newspapers, indirectly 
invoking popular violence upon the anticipated meeting. Alarmed 
by these indications, the proprietor of the Hall refused to open it, 
and the meeting was necessarily postponed. That was a critical hour 
for the slave in the South, for freedom of speech in the North, and 
for the friends of both. In itself, it was a question of little import- 
ance whether a small and obscure Society should hold, publicly or 
privately, a meeting for the transaction of its business. Viewed 
with reference to its immediate consequences only, it seemed that 
obstinacy and folly would counsel the former, and wisdom the latter 
course. But the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society, in deciding 
this question, looked beneath the surface of things, looked beyond the 
present hour. They knew that they stood that day, in Boston, the 



126 THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 

representatives, not only of two and a half millions of American 
slaves calling for help in the name of Justice, but, also, of the right 
of freedom of speech and of the press in the Free States of America. 
They could not estimate then, we cannot compute now, the immense, 
far-reaching consequences for good or evil, which hung on that deci-' 
sion. From the records of these soul-ti-ying scenes, we learn that 
one question was asked and answered by their own souls, and their 
path of duty lay clearly revealed : " Upon whom dare those call to 
resist the popular voice, who have themselves been silenced by its 
tumult ? " 

Then followed the public advertisement of their meeting, and their 
assembling at No. 46 Washington street, on that memorable 21st of 
October, 1833, when that famous mob of '' gentlemen of property 
and standing " assaulted them with violence, and the Mayor of Bos- 
ton told them that he had no power to protect such a meeting. 

These events stand out, with prominence, in a review of the life, 
now become history, of the Women's Anti-Slavery Societies of this 
country ; for they were the commencement of a long course of strug- 
gles against tyranny, and resistance to popular clamor in the advo- 
cacy of the slave's right to personal and political freedom. 

A few years later, Anti-Slavery Women instituted an Annual 
Convention, to be composed of delegates from their various Societies, 
the object of which was " to interest women in the subject of anti- 
slavery, and to establish a system of operations throughout every 
town and village which should exert a powerful influence in the abo- 
lition of American slavery." 

The first of this series of Conventions was held in the city of New 
York, in May, 1837. The Hesolutions adopted and the Addresses 
and Letters issued by that body indicate the wide scope which our 
enterprise had, at that period, attained ; and evince a clear apprehen- 
sion of its growing demands, and a strong and solemn purpose to 
meet them faithfully. 

The second of these Conventions was held in Philadelphia, in 
May, 1838, during that well-remembered week when the Slave 
Power ruled this city, and its vassals sought to appease it by a 
burnt-offering of a Temple of Liberty. Women who sat in their 
imperilled houses that day, thinking on the National inheritance 
awaiting their children, read, by the light of those fires, new lessons of 
duty to their country and their race. That Convention, driven from 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 127 

one place of meeting to another, at liast assembled in a school-room, 
which was opened to them by one who regarded the security of private 
property as of less importance than .'le defence of a great moral 
principle. The records of their closing session show that in the 
midst of their own fiery trials, and their sympathetic sufierings with 
our colored fellow-citizens who were victims of popular fury, they 
were jubilant over the triumph of Liberty in the British West Indies, 
the glad tidings of which were then resounding through our land ; 
and were strong in faith and hope of the emancipation of the Ameri- 
can slave. Another fact is clearly revealed by the records of these 
Conventions. It is that Abolitionists long clung, tenaciously, to the 
American Church, cherishing the belief that there was spiritual 
vitality enough in it to exorcise the spirit of slavery ; and that it 
was with great reluctance that, after earnest and persistent efibrts to 
arouse this vitality, they were convinced that the great body of the 
American Church was so thoroughly corrupted, by its alliances with 
slavery, that separation from it was a Christian duty. 

The third Convention assembled in Philadelphia, in May, 1839, 
and occupied the building of the Pennsylvania Riding School, which, 
the Minutes tell us, was the only building of sufficient size which 
could be procured in the city for that purpose. The Mayor of the 
city, alarmed for the safety of the public peace, called upon Lucre- 
TiA MoTT, and ofi"ered several suggestions for the conduct of the 
Convention, which he thought might aid in warding off" threatened 
danger. It is interesting, now, to read that conversation, eminently 
characteristic of the two parties represented by the colloquists. 

We find on the Minutes of this Convention a Resolution of ad- 
journment to meet in the city of Boston in the year 1840. But the 
adjourned meeting was never held, and the third was the last of this 
series of Conventions. 

The informing spirit of the Anti-Slaveiy enterprise had been lead- 
ing its followers in a way which they knew not. Opening their eyes 
to one truth, and setting their hands with earnest purpose to one 
course of action, they soon perceived the scope of their vision broad- 
ening, and new fields of labor spreading out before them. Women 
whose souls burned with indignation against the monstrous injustice 
of slaveholding, or melted in pity for the slave, began to plead the 
cause of emancipation in public assemblies of men and women ; and 
men, working heartily and zealously in the same cause, discovered 



128 THIRTIETH ANNIVBESARY OF THE 

that, as concert of action between men and women was important to 
success, so mutual counsel and discussion in their business meetings 
were convenient and profitable. The American Anti-Slavery Socie- 
ty, at its Annual Meeting in 1840, decided for itself that such 
mutual conference was right and expedient, and thenceforward wo- 
men shared with men the ^management of its business, spoke from its 
platform, and were commissioned as its lecturing agents. Anti-Sla- 
very Conventions composed exclusively of women were no longer 
needed, as they served no purpose which was not better served on a 
broader basis of operation. Some of our Women's Anti-Slavery 
Societies retained their distinct organization, and others were gradu- 
ally merged in State or County Societies. 

Two Institutions established by the Boston and Philadelphia Fe- 
male Anti-Slavery Societies, and which became very important auxili- 
aries in our cause, have a prominent place in the scenes which we are 
reviewing. These are the series of Annual Fairs commenced in Bos- 
ton in the year 1835, and in Philadelphia in 1836. The former soon 
passed from a Metropolitan into a National Institution ; and the lat- 
ter, in the progress of years, became in fact and in name the Penn- 
sylvania Anti-Slavery Fair, though they continued under the control 
and management of their originators. These have been of vast im- 
portance to our cause, in furnishing pecuniary support to the organ 
of the National Society, and to other instrumentalities by which our 
work has been done. And independently of such service, they have 
been of immense value as mediums of moral influence. Their social 
attractions brought many young persons within the hearing of anti- 
slavery truth ; the opportunity of working for the objects of their 
sympathy crystallized sentiment into principle ; the annual gatherings 
of the old and young, the veterans and the neophytes of our ranks, 
in scenes where the freedom of social intercourse mingled with the 
spirit of an anti-slavery meeting, were Passover Festivals, whither 
" our tribes went up " with gladness, and found refreshment and 
strength. Occasionally they became mediums of strength to our 
souls by a sterner ministration. There were times when the populace, 
consenting to be the tool of the Slave Power, demanded the suppres- 
sion of these Fairs, and the municipal authority sympathized with a 
lawless mob, or shrank from the duty of opposing it. Four years 
ago, some of you stood in this Hall in very diiferent circumstances 
from these which surround us to-day. Then, the banner which we 



AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 129 

hung out from its walls disturbed the peace of Philadelphia, because 
it bade the nation " Proclaim liberty throughout all the land, to all 
the inhabitants thereof." Some of you well remember that remark- 
able conference which we held in the centre of this room, standing 
with the officers of the law, who were in most uncomfortable strait 
betwixt their sense of obligation to do what they were bidden, and 
their reluctance to perform the disgraceful errand on which they had 
been sent. On that occasion, our opponents succeeded in ejecting 
the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Fair from this Hall, and the doors of 
another were immediately opened to it, by one of our citizens, who, 
in the darkest and stormiest days of our conflict, never closed those 
doors against us. 

Many of you remember, also, the yet more trying circumstances 
in which this Fair was held a year later, when the anticipation of the 
dissolution of the Union had alarmed the commercial classes in the 
North, and the suppression of an Anti-Slavery Bazaar was regarded 
by some of our citizens as an opportune peace-offering to the South, 
and we were once more called to stand for the defence of the peo- 
ple's right of peaceful assemblage. The vigilance of our Mayor 
and his officers frustrated the purpose of the mob ; and we regarded 
the maintenance of our right thus to assemble the chief success of 
our Fair of 1860. 

The Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society has preserved its 
distinct organization, and now awaits, with its coadjutors of the past 
thirty years, the hour when the shout of final victory shall burst 
from all our host, proclaiming that the work of the American Abo- 
litionists is accomplished. That hour draws nigh. At the close of 
thirty years of warfare, we stand to-day in the midst of national 
convulsion — of a great moral revolution. Old things have passed 
away, and we hear a voice out of heaven proclaiming, " Behold, I 
make all things new ! " The long and weary hours of darkness 
passed, we look around us, and 

" Lo ! our foemen of the night 

Are brothers at the dawn of day." 

Our watchwords are caught by other lips, and echoed through the 
land. Our Banner of Emancipation clings to the flag-staff of the 
Stars and Stripes, and soon will wave as broadly over the nation. 
" Who knoweth not that the hand of the Lord hath wrought this? " 
17 



130 THIRTIETH ANNIYEBSARY OF THE AMEK. A. S. SOCIETY. 

Verily, it is fitting that we, who, side hy side, have toiled and 
fought for thirty years, should, come hither to-day, to grasp one 
another's hands in fraternal congratulation, and to unite our unut- 
terable thanksgivings that America's Day of Jubilee has dawned, 
and its sun is high in the heavens. With its glory streaming down 
upon us, and the song of our ransomed brethren in our ears, we bow 
in adoration before the Power and Wisdom and Love which is guid- 
ing this mighty revolution, and cry : " Thy will be done on earth as 
it is done in heaven." 



APPENDIX. 



LETTER FROM JOHN JAY, ESQ. 

To Messrs. J. M. McKim, and others, Committee of the Amer- 
ican A?iti- Slavery Society : 

Gentlemen, — It is with regret that I find myself unable to ac- 
cept the invitation with which you have honored me to assist at the 
celebration of your Thirtieth Anniversary. 

The term of a generation has elapsed since that eventful assem- 
blage at Philadelphia in 1838, and we who survive are permitted to 
see the great objects which were then proposed in the course of rapid 
accomplishment. 

Slavery has already ceased to have a constitutional or legal exist- 
ence in the rebel States, and the faith of the National Grovernment 
and the American people has been solemnly pledged to that act, by 
the Commander-in-Chief of our Army and Navy ; and at his com- 
mand, also, rightfully issued under the same war power and on 
grounds of military necessity, the colored people are being raised to 
the rank of soldiers and citizens. But we cannot overlook the fact 
that these objects of our life-long devotion are being effected by other 
arguments than the narrow constitutional means and moral suasion 
to which the founders of your Society so rigidly limited its efforts. 
Man proposes, but Grod orders; and it was ordained that the Slave 
Power of America, hardening its heart like its prototype of Egypt, 
and raising its bloody hand against the American people, to the end 
that it might erect a slave empire on the ruins of our Republic, 
should, by its own act, forfeit the constitutional guarantees by which it 
was protected, and should itself invite its extingaishment by the tramp 
of armies and the crash of battle. While the slaveholders in their 
madness have thus inaugurated a war in which slav^ei-y is to perish, 
it is to be remembered that their allies at the North persistently 
allured them to their doom. 

The first gun aimed against Sumter, and which sounded the knell 
of slavery, would never have been fired but for the assurance given 
by Democratic leaders at the North, who believed the masses to be 
as rotten as themselves, that they would assist the rebels in revolu- 
tionizing the government; and when the war had progressed for 
nearly two years, these rc'iel sympathizers, foiled in their effort to 
convince the nation that it had no right to defend its existence, 
attempted to stay the national arm by discouraging volunteering at 



132 APPENDIX. 

the North, and so compelled the President to call upon the black 
man to assist in maintaining our constitutional integrity. How 
promptly that call has been responded to, how gallantly he has done 
his duty as a soldier at Port Hudson,' Milliken's Bend, and Fort 
Wagner, and how popular the scheme of enlisting colored troops has 
become, from the simple fact, that every black man who joins the 
army enables a white man to stay at home, are matters familiar to 
us all ; and we can hardly fail to admire the inscrutable ways of 
Providence, as we wonderingly behold the abolition of slavery and 
the elevation of the colored race, for which we had labored for a 
quarter of a century with such small success, now being rapidly and 
eflfectually accomplished through the agency of Jefferson Davis, 
Mr. Vallandigxiam, and Grov. Seymouk. He maketh, says Holy 
Writ, the wrath of man to praise Him, and the remainder of wrath 
shall He restrain. 

A time so full of excitement as the present is not the most fitting 
for a calm review of the history of the Society, whose birth you are 
met to celebrate ; and yet, as our work is so nearly finished, and your 
next decade will probably dawn upon the American continent unpol- 
luted by the footstep of a slave, it may be well now to recal the po- 
litical principles declared in the Constitution of your Society, as 
established at Philadelphia, and reaffirmed in the face of the malig- 
nant persecutions to which its early members were subjected. They 
are not to be lightly overlooked by the future historian of America ; 
for when the story of their struggle is truly told, there will be no 
brighter page in American history than that which records their 
pure philanthropy, their intelligent patriotism, their wise statesman- 
ship, their moral courage, and their heroic defence of Christian 
principle and constitutional right against the domineering power of 
an overwhelming and brutal majority. 

If the founders of the American Anti-Slavery Society must yield 
to Jefferson Davis and his confreres, so far as the merit goes of 
organizing a thoroughly efficient project of immediate abolition, by 
so much as the bayonet and the bullet, iron-clads and monitors, 
Greek-fire and swamp angels are more convincing arguments than 
slow appeals to the conscience and the reason — especially when the 
one is blunted and the other perverted — they need yield to none in 
the claim which their children will make for them, that they were the 
exemplars of that spirit of devotion to Christian truth and American 
principle that to-day like a halo enwraps our country, and unites us 
in a common resolve to maintain, at whatever cost, against Southern 
slavery and European neutrality, the unity, the greatness, and the 
freedom of our Republic. 

I am aware that this view differs somewhat from the portrait 
which has been usually painted of American Abolitionists; that they 
have been pictured as disunionists, amalgamationists and incendia- 
ries, anxious to interfere with slavery in defiance of the Constitution, 
and to incite servile insurrection without regard to humanity. But 
who was the painter of these darkly shadowed and distorted features? 



LETTER FROM JOHN JAY. 133 

The Slave Power, disguised as a conservator of the Constitution, and 
attempting to escape the issue which we tendered by inventing frau- 
dulent side issues. Now that the Slave Power is stripped of the 
mask under which it dared to impeach the patriotism of the Aboli- 
tionists, the American people will at their leisure review the charges 
which many of them have long believed. 

One quality is already accorded to them, even by their intelligent 
opponents, and that is, moral courage, indomitable pluck. A hand- 
ful of men, without power, wealth, or official influence, they arrayed 
themselves against American slavery, reigning supreme in Church 
and State, as did the English Quakers against the British slave 
trade; and although they had none other than moi-al weapons and an 
armory of facts, the Slave Power recognized them at once as an ad- 
versary to be feared and to be crushed ; for it dreaded, as was frank- 
ly admitted, their influence not simply with the people of the North, 
but upon the consciences of the slaveholders themselves. 

The members of your Society were compelled to meet the furious 
onset of the Slave Power almost from the moment of their organi- 
zation. Villified by a slaveholdiug President, whose message they 
answered with a protest of great dignity and force ; denounced in 
both Houses of Congress by slaveholders and their tools; slandered 
by a demoralized pi-ess ; derided from the bench ; sneered at by 
the bar, and damned from the pulpit; hooted at in political and reli- 
gious conventions; tabood in would-be-aristocratic circles; threatened 
with legislative pains and penalties for exercising their constitutional 
prerogatives ; howled at by ruffian mobs, their houses sacked, their 
churches invaded, their presses destroyed, their liberties violated, 
they maintained their integrity with undaunted front, yielding no iota 
of principle, but grandly fulfilling the injunction, " Stand like a 
beaten anvil ! " Every new outrage, as they multiplied throughout 
the North, such as the dragging of a clergyman from his pidpit in 
New Hampshire, and his sentence, by a convenient magistrate, as a 
common brawler, to fifteen days' hard labor, for having preached an 
anti-slavery sermon ; or the leading of Mr. Garrison, that early and 
faithful pioneer of freedom, about the streets of Boston with a rope 
around his body, amid the plaudits of "gentlemen of property and 
standing " ; or the murder of the brave Lovejoy, forerunner of the 
countless thousands since murdered by the same accursed power; so 
far from intimidating the Abolitionists, only inspired them with a 
sterner determination to rescue the country from the ruffianism of 
slavery, and they stood, and on the page of history will for ever 
stand, the successful chamjiious of those constitutional rights, freedom 
of conscience and of speech, freedom of the press and of debate, and 
the right of petition. 

In vindicating the founders of the Society from the charges pre- 
ferred against them by the slaveholders, and on the strength of which 
they were so bitterly persecuted — charges which were swallowed 
with disgraceful credulity by willing dupes, and which even now are 
sometimes repeated by men who lay claim to an ordinary degree of 



134 APPENDIX. 

intelligence — it is necessary to refer to some historical facts, in order 
that the opinions of individuals or of societies at a later date may not 
be confounded with the principles, pledges and conduct of the na- 
tional organization formed at Philadelphia, 

The principal charges on which its founders were arraigned were 
these : 

1. That they disregarded and repudiated the Constitution of the 
United States, 

2. That they were in favor of a dissolution of the Union, 

3. That they advocated the right of Congress to abolish slavery in 
the States. 

4. That they favored marriages between blacks and whites. 

5. That they approved of and incited insurrection among the 
slaves. 

When the Anti-Slavery Convention met at Philadelphia, Judge 
Jay, who was prevented from attending as a delegate, urged upon 
them, by letter, the necessity of an explicit declaration of their po- 
litical principles, to meet the baseless charges already made against 
them. 

The first number of The Emancipator had shortly before an- 
nounced that " constitutional restrictions, independently of other con- 
siderations, forbid all other than moral interference with slavery in 
the Southern States ; " and the Convention incorporated three dis- 
tinct propositions in the Constitution of the American Anti-Slavery 
Society : 

1. That each State in which slavery exists has, by the Constitution 
of the United States, the exclusive right to legislate in regard to 
abolition in that State. 

2. That they would endeavor, in a constitutional way, to influence 
Congress to put an end to the domestic slave trade, and to abolish 
slavery in the District of Columbia, and likewise to prevent the ex- 
tension of slavery to any State that might thereafter be admitted to 
the Union. 

3. That the Society would never in any way countenance the op- 
pressed in vindicating their rights by resorting to physical force. 

Under this Constitution and these distinct pledges, the Society rap- 
idly increased in numbers, strength and influence. Its lecturers, 
agents, newspapers and publications aroused the country, and auxili- 
ary societies sprang up far and near, numbering in 183G, 527 ; in 
1837, 1,006; in 1838, 1,256; and in 1839, 1,650 auxiliaries had 
adopted the principles of its Constitution. 

It was to crush anti-slavery effort under these clearly-defined lim- 
itations that mobs were inaugurated, in 1834, to sack churches and 
houses in New York, and to insult Mr, Garkison in Boston, and 
" conservative meetings " were held in various Northern cities, " to 
consign to execration " the Abolitionists as " abandoned knaves and 
hypocrites." 

In 1835, the Board of your Society issued an address to the pub- 
lic, for the advisement of those who had been led to believe that they 



LETTER FROM JOHN JAY, 135 

" were pursuing measures at vai'iance not only with the constitutional 
rights of the South, but with the precepts of humanity and religion." 
The address was signed by Arthur Tappan, President, and also 
by John Kankin, William Jay, Elizur Wright, A. L. Cox, 
Lewis Tappan, Sam. E. Cornish, S. S. Josselyn, and Theodore S. 
Wright. As it excited marked attention both in America and in 
Europe, and is the fullest oflScial exposition of the views of the So- 
cio. y, you will perhaps allow me to quote briefly its several heads. 
They were as follows : 

1. That Congress has no more right to abolish slavery in the 
Southern States than in the French West India Islands. 

2. That the exercise of any other than moral influence to induce 
abolition by the State Legislatures would be unconstitutional. 

3. That Congress had the right to abolish slavery in the District 
of Columbia, and that it was their duty to efface so foul a stain from 
the national escutcheon. 

4. That American citizens have the right to express and publish 
their opinions of the Constitution, laws and institutions of any and 
every State and nation under heaven, and " we never intend to sur- 
render the liberty of speech, of the press, or of conscience — bless- 
ings we have inherited from our fathers, and which we mean, so far 
as we are able, to transmit unimpaired to our children." 

5. That thej' had uniformly deprecated all forcible attempts on the 
part of the slaves to recover their freedom. 

6. That they would deplore any servile insurrection, on account of 
the calamities that would attend it, and the occasion it might give for 
increased severity. 

7. That the charge that they had sent publications to the South, 
designed to incite the slaves to insurrection, was utterly and unequiv- 
ocally false. 

8. That the charge that they had sent any publications to the 
slaves was false. 

9. That they had employed no agents in the Slave States to dis- 
tribute their publications. 

10. They reiterated their conviction that slavery was sinful, and 
injurious to the country, and that immediate abolition would be both 
safe and wise, and that they had no intention of refraining from the 
expression of such views in future. 

11. They reiterated their views in reference to the elevation of the 
colored people. 

12. "We are accused of acts that tend to a dissolution of the 
Union, and even of wishing to destroy it. We have never calculated 
' the value of the Union,' because we believe it to be inestimable, 
and that the abolition of slavery will remove the chief danger of its 
dissolution." 

In conclusion, they said : " Such, fellow-citizens, are our princi- 
ples. Are they unworthy of Republicans and of Christians ? " 
And, after referring to the unconstitutional usurpation of the govern- 
ment to protect slavery, and to preveat free discussion and the free- 



136 APPENDIX. 

clom of the mails, they closed with the prophetic warning : " Surely, 
we need not remind you that if you submit to such an encroachment 
on your liberties, the days of our Republic are numbered ; and that 
although Abolitionists may be the first, they will not be the last vic- 
tims offered at the shrine of arbitrary power," 

As the country, under the stirring appeals and st^-rtling facts put 
forth by the American Society, its auxiliaries and its members, 
awoke to a new appreciation of the evils and dangers of slavery to 
the Republic as well as to the slave, some earnest Abolitionists, 
stung by a sense of its excessive wrong, and unwilling to await the 
slow remedy of moral suasion, or limited Congressional interference, 
sought to find some shorter method of accomplishing its destruction. 
Here and there, one inclined to the belief that Congress could consti- 
tutionally abolish it; others, that its very existence was unconstitu- 
tional, and should be so declared by the Supreme Court; and a few, 
at a later period, that it could be effected only by a dissolution of the 
Union. 

But all of these suggestions were absolutely irreconcilable with 
the Constitution adopted in Philadelphia. In 1838, the late Alvan 
Stewart, Esq., of Utica, attempted to change that Constitution by 
an elaborate argument in favor of the right of Congress to abolish 
slavery in the States, and the proposed amendment was urged with 
great vigor and eloquence; but it was as vigorously resisted, as un- 
sound in principle and inconsistent with good faith, and the attempt 
signally failed. 

In the same year, the Massachusetts Society reconsidered some 
resolution that had been hastily adopted, and resolved, " That Con- 
gress has no power to abolish slavery in the several States of this 
Union." 

The same year, Mr. Ellis Gray Loring wrote to Judge Jay, 
from Boston : " I know of but one or two persons here who believe 
in the power of Congress over slavery in the States." 

With the division that occurred a year or two later in the Ameri- 
can Society, the I'cmoval of the old Board to Boston, and the forma- 
tion in New York of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavel-y 
Society, the national unity of the organization was broken, and 
widely differing views began to be expressed by anti-slavery men, 
who did not hold to the principles declared at Philadelphia, upon the 
religious and political bearings of the question. 

Prominent individuals divided upon the status of slavery, and the 
best mode of overthrowing it ; and neither the Liberty party, headed 
by those veteran Abolitionists, Gerrit Smith and William Goodell, 
nor Wendell Phillips, the golden-mouthed exponent of the views 
entertained at Boston, fairly represented the constitutional principles 
defined by the American Society, and adopted by nearly two thou- 
sand auxiliary associations. 

But — and this is an historic fact of interest and importance — 
as the increasing insolence and usurpation of the Slave Power induced 
the conviction that if the Abolitionists had commenced the struggle 



LETTER FROM JOHN JAY. 137 

to obtain freedom for the slave, the American people must continue 
it to preserve their own ; and with their characteristic common sense, 
the people devoted themselves to the task of overthrowing its power 
and checking its extension, and organized for the purpose, under the 
wise lead of Abolitionists, in 1855, the Republican party. They in- 
corporated into that platform the identical constitutional principles 
on which, thirty years ago, the American Anti-Slavery Society took 
its stand. 

On these principles, for the holding of which we and our fathers 
were denounced as incendiaries and fanatics, Fremont was nomi- 
nated and Lincoln was elected ; and the sufficiency of those princi- 
ples — the restriction of slavery extension, the abolition of slavery 
in the District, and of the inter-State slave trade, and the emancipa- 
tion of the National Government from the control of the Slave 
Power — to cripple and eventually to destroy slavery, was significant- 
ly recognized by the slaveholders themselves when they resolved, 
some twenty-five or thirty years ago, that the instant those principles 
were triumphant in the National Government, they would anticipate 
the overthrow of slavery by overthrowing the Republic. 

Prejudices deeply seated may obscure, perhaps, for another gene- 
ration, the credit due to the gentlemen whose careful action in con- 
vention you are met to celebrate ; but the candid historian will admit 
that they exhibited not a blind devotion to the cause of the slave, 
but a conscientious regard to the integrity of the Constitution, and 
the welfare and happiness of the country. He will record that it 
was the Abolitionists who, avoiding all infringement on the constitu- 
tional rights of the slaveholders, would allow no infringement on 
their own, and that to them belongs the honor of vindicating the 
right of petition, and maintaining against brute violence and Icffislative 
menace freedom of speech and of the press. While he will be com- 
pelled to acknowledge that in many things they were defeated, that 
they opposed unsuccessfully the Seminole war and the annexation of 
Texas under the late rebel Joun Tyler, that they failed in arresting 
that most wicked war waged by the Slave Power against Mexico un- 
der James K. Polk, and that accursed act, the Fugitive Slave Bill, 
under the i-enegade Abolitionist, Millard Fillmore, and the removal 
under Franklin Pierce, of the ancient landmark fixed by the Mis- 
souri Compromise, he may say with truth, that they checkmated the 
Slave Power under James Buchanan in its efibrts to force slavery 
into Kansas, and that they for ever terminated its usurped supremacy 
upon the continent, when, defeating the traitors Bell and Breckin- 
ridge, they elected as President Abraham Lincoln. 

Whatever errors of opinion or of action there may have been on the 
part of individuals or societies at a recent date, the political principles 
declared at Philadelphia have stood the test of time and trial, and have 
received the emphatic endorsement of the American people ; and the 
Anti-Slavery movement in the United States, with few exceptions that 
more plainly show the rule, has been marked by statesmanlike char- 

13 



138 APPENDIX. 

acteristics, now crowned with success, and by a love of country that 
no delay, injustice or disappointment could impair or disturb. 

Their progress was not always observed by the unobservant, and 
we heard occasionally that Abolition was dead; but when the hour 
came that the Slave Power, drunken with blood and insolent with 
oppression, deemed itself strong enough to destroy the llepublic, 
anticipating an easy victory by the aid of its fellow-traitors in the 
North, the hour had come also, although they knew it not, when the 
loyal American people were educated to that point of patriotism, 
pluck and constitutional strength, that they were able to meet the 
IdIow, treacherously as it was given, and to return it with a vigor that 
is sending slavery and the rebellion to a common grave. 

It is an interesting fact, that while the rebel slaveholders, who 
still regard as their friends the Peace Democrats and conditional 
Unionists at the North, who veil their treason under very thin dis- 
guise, both slaveholders and slaves, long before the Proclamation of 
Emancipation, foresaw the inevitable issue of the contest ; and Beau- 
KEGARD came much nearer the truth than he has sometimes done, 
when he forbade his rebel troops to call by any other name than Ab- 
olitionist, every soldier who followed the old flag of his country, 
keeping step to the music of the Union, and ready to die in its de- 
fence. 

As we recall reverently the dead upon your roll of those who met 
at Philadelphia, to issue what has since proven to be a second Declara- 
tion of Independence, let us remember also, tenderly, our brave he- 
roes, who, slain by slavery, sleep beoeath the battle-fields of the Re- 
public, and their comrades, our sons and brothers, who now main- 
tain against that inhuman power the integrity, the supremacy, and 
the honor of our country. 

Always, gentlemen, most faithfully yours, 

JOHN JAY, 



LETTER FROM ARCHIBALD A. McINTYRE. 

Philadelphia, Dec, 1, 1863. 
J. M. McKiM, Esq. : 

Dear Sir, — A kind invitation was received to attend a meeting 
of your Society, to be held on the 3d and 4th inst. 

While I have to decline it because of pressing engagements, I can- 
not but express my full conviction in the complete success of a cause, 
which, like yours, is right in itself, and which is sought to be pro- 
moted by instrumentalities only which are sanctioned by law, moral- 
ity and religion. EiForts made to reform, based on " the conviction 
and repentance " of the wrong-doer, must in the end succeed, partic- 
ularly when that wrong-doer is a community. 

Very respectfully, yours, 

ARCHIBALD A. McINTYRK 



LETTER FROM REV. C. G. AMES. 139 

LETTER FROM REV. CHARLES G. AMES. 

Albany, N. Y., Dec. 1, 1863. 
Dear Mr. Garrison : 

I greatly wish I could accept your kind invitation to be one of the 
favored many who will meet in Holy Convocation at Philadelphia 
this week : much more might I wish myself worthy to be counted 
as one of those who, by bearing the burden and heat of the day, 
have been the instruments of Higher Wisdom in bringing the Good 
Time so near. But as one born out of due time — as one born too 
late to be a worker in the earlier and more trying days when "not 
crime itself was so fatal to a man as to be known to hold abolition 
sentiments" — I do most heartily rejoice that other men have labored 
with such rich results. As I give thanks to God for all good, so do 
I thank him for the x\merican Abolitionists, and for their noble 
work, which has made a true Republic — a Christian Common- 
wealth — possible in America. Of all the warriors which this con- 
tinent has produced, from sturdy Miles Standish down to Uncondi- 
TiONAL-ScuKENDER Grant, I should most delight to crown with gar- 
lands of honor the brave men and women who have fought through 
the Thirty Years' War with Slavery. 

Though I have never thought it wise or necessary to burn down 
our political house in order to clear it of vermin — though I have 
always believed that "Union" would sooner or later be understood to 
mean " Liberty " — yet I have also rejoiced to recognize that deep 
conservatism which has ever been at the bottom of all anti-slavery 
radicalism, and have been captivated by that sublime faith in God 
and Truth, and the Brotherhood of all Human Interests, which has 
not ceased, through all these dreary years, to cry aloud in the ears 
of this guilty nation, " Let justice be done, and the heavens xcorCt 
fall ! " 

I join with you in thanking God for the victories of the Past, and 
also in taking courage for the battles of the Future. For there is 
much heavy work waiting to be done. In the first place, we must 
clinch the nail already driven, by maintaining the legal validity and 
securing the practical efficiency of the Great Proclamation. The 
highest military authority, pressed by an unparalleled national crisis, 
has done what John Quinct x\dams said any General might do — 
has declared, concerning more than three million slaves held by the 
public enemy, that they " are, and henceforward shall be, free." 
Powerful combinations will be formed to secure the return of the 
rebel States with no guaranty for the enforcement of this national 
decree of freedom : the plain English of which is, that, for the sake 
of reinvesting traitors with their forfeited rights of citizenship, we 
will permit the reenslavcment of those loyal millions, in violation of 
the plighted faith of our Government. For the sake of a false, 
treacherous and dishonorable peace, we will make ourselves active 



140 APPENDIX. 

accomplices in the blackest crime in history ! It would scarcely be 
more monstrous, if 'we were to send proposals to the rebels, " If you 
will resume your old, hypocritical pretence of allegiance, and live at 
peace with us, we will consent to the butchery of all the soldiers now 
in arms against you, of all Southern Unionists whose presence of- 
fends you, and of all Northern men whose opinions are hostile to 
slavery ! " It is for anti-slavery men to teach this nation that all 
acceptable peace-offerings must be laid on the altar of Liberty, and 
not on the altar of Despotism. And it is for anti-slavery men to 
see to it that " the promise of freedom, being made," shall be " kept," 

What more effective way of clinching this nail, so well driven into 
the coffin of our national Tormentor, than by striking straight, bold, 
hard blows in favor of " liberty throughout all the land unto all the 
inhabitants thereof"? If there are honest difierences as to methods ; 
if we do not all see clearly the wisdom or constitutionality of Con- 
gressional legislation against slavery in the non-seceding States, ex- 
cept on the basis of cooperation with those States ; the least we can 
do is to insist that Congress must exercise its conceded power to in- 
vite and secure that cooperation. When it is wholly apparent that 
" Freedom for All " is the settled policy and purpose of that loyal 
mass which constitutes the nation, and which alone has the right to 
govern. Slavery in every Border State, as in Missouri, will be seen on 
its knees, in an agony of vain supplication for a little more time to 
make its will, chatter ita prayers, gather up its robes, and get ready 
to die as becomes its Christian professions. For we must, hence- 
forth, reckon among " the powers that be," which " are ordained of 
God," and which " bear not the sword in vain," a compact, earnest, 
almost savage party of Emancipationists (not "Abolitionists" — oh, no 
indeed !) in every Border State ; for even Kentucky must soon come 
pouting into line, jostled and crowded forward by her more sensible 
neighbors. When slavery, hotly pressed by foes who are dead in 
earnest, can only act on the defensive, and is confronted on its own 
ground by a free press and free assemblies of the people, the fight 
may be sharp, but it must be short. It will be glad to die all the 
sooner for being assui-ed that the loyal sense and sympathy of the 
whole nation take sides with its assailants; and we must take care 
that such assurance is amply justified. 

May I say one thing more, which lies much on ray heart? You, 
of all men, know best how to excuse the many things which try to 
get themselves spoken, when these sacred subjects are once broached. 

We must stand by the Freedmen like brothers, through their try- 
ing period of transition — through the weary wilderness of years 
which will still stretch between their Egvpt and their Canaan, even 
after they have clambered out of the bed of this Bed Sea, AVe 
must nurse their infant liberty till it can go alone and defend itself. 
The negro, like another man, must indeed work out his own salvation, 
and fight his own battle ; but we are bound to see fair play. The 
malignant, murderous prejudice and piratical rapacity of the white 
man must not be allowed to override the weakness, inexperience, ig- 



LETTER FROM JESSE STEDMAN. 141 

norance and simplicity of a people just born into the world; nor to 
force unrighteous inferences from their faults and follies; nor to 
cheat them of the means of honest living and growing. Equality 
of rights before the law must not only be recognized in form, but 
must be secured in fact, as a thing of the spirit and the life, or 
Emancipation is only a victorious failure. 

You asked me to "send a word of cheer"; and, lo ! I fall to 
talking of more burdens yet to be borne, and more duties yet to be 
done. Happily, the lovers of God and man have learned that duty 
is joy, and that hard work is heavenly pleasure. What greater 
privilege than to meet the rising occasion, and pour on the strained 
and sensitive ear-drum of this awakened nation the clear, wise, warm 
message of Humanity and Justice? Never was the lesson more 
needed; never could it be more welcome; never could it sound so 
much like the trump of God. 

Welcome, day of judgment! Depart, ye cursed, who have be- 
trayed and crucified the Christ in the person of his poor and help- 
less brothers! Come forward, ye blessed, who have been true to the 
rights of the least and the lowest — to the rights of those who could 
not recompense your fidelity ! Inherit the kingdom ! It is yours 
henceforward ; and ye shall sit on the right hand of ^ Power. 

Yours, in the patience of hope and the labor of love, 

CHARLES G. AMES. 



LETTER FROM JESSE STEDMAN. 

Springfield, (Yt.) Nov. 25, 1863. 
My Dear Sir : 

Your invitation to attend the Convention of the American Anti- 
Slavery Society at the city of Philadelphia, on the Hd and 4th of De- 
cember, came duly to hand, and I do assure you no man, more than 
myself, will feel a deeper interest in its action, or would more enjoy 
a brief interview with the early pioneers of this Heaven-appointed 
cause, in a city whose founder never stained his hands with human 
blood, nor his soul with a touch of that abomination of abominations, 
human bondage; and no man more than myself regards the import- 
ance of decided, united and untiring action in the cause of emanci- 
pation at this momentous crisis, when all, or nearly all, are disposed, 
either from policy or principle, to lend a helping band. 

I would accept aid coming from amj quarter and from almost a7iy 
motive, to exterminate and utterly annihilate the cause of all our 
national calamities. The most absurd and dangerous policy is to 
turn the Abolition cause over to the Government, as some seem dis- 
])Osed to do, when the second "ruler in the kingdom" tells the world 
" slavery is their business, not mine," and very complacently talks 
about " returning prodigals " .' Returning prodigals, forsooth ! ! 



142 APPENDIX. 

Thieves, murderers, pirates ranked under the mild cognomen of prod- 
igals! A prodigal, in the common acceptation of the term, is an 
angel of light in the comparison, as he may not be guilty of a single 
act which the law regards criminal, I have less confidence than 
most men in the President, the Cabinet, or members of Congress,- 
with a few honorable exceptions in regard to the latter, as to any 
action of either based upon the principle of immediate, universal 
emancipation as the duty of the Government and right of the slave ; 
and hence I regard the action of the American Anti-Slavery Society 
in this momentous crisis of immeasurable importance. The wants of 
the thousands already free, and the millions yet in bond.age, if ever 
free, in the necessaries of life and education to render them fit sub- 
jects for civilized life, present an outlay and amount of labor to be 
done the most appalling. But, Mr. President, I am aware I hardly 
need urge the Convention to action when there are so many who have 
been longer in the harness, and have labored so much more efiectively 
than myself. In this connection, I cannot but advert to the changed 
condition of public opinion since the burning of Pennsylvania Hall, 
an age ago, in the city where you assemble, dedicated to free discus- 
sion. Then my blood rose to fever heat, and has remained there 
most of the time since. May your labor be crowned with success, 
and that speedily ; and Grod grant that vioral necessity may complete 
what military necessity commenced, and the joyous shouts of thirty- 
three million, free as the air of heaven, shake the continent from 
centre to circumference, and the benediction of the world and the 
blessing of God rest upon all who have lent a helping hand to deliver 
the oppressed from the power of the oppressor ! 

JESSE STEDMAN. 



LETTER FROM GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 

North Shore, (Staten Island, N. Y.) Nov., 1863. 
Dear Sir : 

I have the invitation to your meetings on the 3d and 4th of De- 
cember, but my engagements will take me far away at that time. I 
do not wonder that you congratulate yourselves, for History will re- 
cord that the Abolitionists were the vanguard of American liberty, 
not only in asserting the natural right ef every man to personal free- 
dom, but in maintaining through the fiery tempest of hostile public 
opinion the right of free speech, which is the corner-stone of a Repub- 
lic of all the people like ours. 

I rejoice with you that we have lived to the day in which the peo- 
ple of this country plainly see that Liberty, and Liberty alone, is 
Union. 

Faithfully, yours, 

GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 



LETTER FROM REV. JEHIEL CLAFLIN. 143 

LETTER FROM REV. JEHIEL CLAFLIN. 

East Westmoreland, (N. H.) Nov. 28, 1863. 
Dear Garrison : 

Your circular and letter of the 23d inst., inviting me to be present 
at the decade celebration in the city of Philadelphia, on the 3d and 
4th of December proximo, was iVoeived ; and as I shall be denied 
the pleasure of being present in person to participate in the proceed- 
ings of that memorable and joyous occasion, allow me, dear sir, 
through you, to congratulate the veteran pioneers and faithful coad- 
jutors in meeting each other again, after a long and arduous warfare, 
in the " city of brotherly love," where, thirty years ago, they met to 
inauguratie the grandest and most sublime movement since the Chris- 
tian era. Being based, not on expediency but on principle, and de- 
pending, not on numbers but on the truth and the justice of their 
cause, they could not but have the sanction and approval of a just 
God and all-wise Ruler of the Universe; and relying on his all-potent 
arm for aid, their ultimate success could be but a question of time. 
And although many of the loved and dearly-remembered ones, co- 
laborers in this humanitary and Heaven-approved etiterprise, have 
fallen in the midst of the " irrepressible conflict," yet it has pleased 
the all-wise and merciful Father graciously to spare the precious life 
of him, who, under God, was the first to call to repentance this guilty 
and oppressive nation — "to undo the heavy burdens, to break every 
yokCj and let the oppressed go free " ; and though one after another 
of the faithful ones has fallen, battling nobly in the true heroic and 
martyr spirit for the deliverance of the oppressed, " remembering 
those in bonds as bound with them," yet others, catching the spirit of 
the noble dead, have risen up as new recruits to fill the ranks, and 
help carry forward to final completion the great work so nobly be- 
gun. The occasion will be a rare one for those who have consecrated 
the strength of their years and manhood in the cause of the oppressed. 
Those who will be gathered there to greet each other again and re- 
new old acquaintance, will gather new strength and new inspiration 
to press on to final victory this mighty death-grapple with the legions 
and powers of darkness. The true friends of immediate emancipa- 
tion and universal freedom have abundant cause of rejoicing and 
hope, in view of what has already been accomplished in the result of 
their faithful and indefitigable labors ; " but the end is not yet." 
Slavery is a monster tenacious of life ; but the harpoons of truth 
have been thrown by skillful hands, and the hideous monster is now 
writhing in his death-throes. Hitherto our cause has been unpopu- 
lar, but now its advocates and friends maybe counted by many thou- 
sands; since, to be such, no longer endangers one's reputation or 
popularity ; yet, coming in at the eleventh hour, " they shall receive 
their penny." Recounting on this occasion, as you certainly will, the 
marvellous changes in the public mind and heart in this nation in re- 
gard to this great question of the age, you may very pertinently ask, 



144 APPENDIX. 

" What hath God wrought? " Thanking God for his favor and help 
in the past, let us gird up afresh with unftiltering fidelity and hope 
for the last decisive and final victory over the serried hosts of dark- 
ness, conscious that our duty is not done and our work not complete 
until the last fetter is broken from the limbs of the last slave in the 
land. Let every true Abolitionist be encouraged, now that the 
North has been aroused, and has leaped to "arms," and marshalled 
its hosts to vindicate our cause and the rights of humanity in " black 
and white." Let every heart and hand be quickened to new zeal and 
activity in the meritorious work of redeeming humanity from the 
iron grasp of tyrants and oppressors. 

Let us all be hopeful that God, after having sufiiciently chastened 
us, as a nation, for our pride, avarice, ambition, ingratitude and op- 
pression, will yet bring us out of this fiery ordeal a united, prosper- 
ous and happy people, to be in the future not a warning but an ex- 
ample to all the nations of the earth. 

Feeling it an honor, of which I am not worthy, to have my hum- 
ble name linked with the noble and honored champions of impartial 
and universal freedom, and praying that God's blessing may attend 
your gathering, I am, with much esteem, your fellow-laborer, 

JEHIEL CLAFLIN. 



LETTER FROM SARAH M. GRIMKE. 

West Newton, Nov. 30, 1863. 
Dear Brother Garrison : 

How my heart yearns to be with you on this soul-stirring and glo- 
rious occasion — the third decade of your untiring and unflinching 
efibrts in the cause of Human Rights ! What a jubilee to my spirit 
would it be to mingle with you in this celebration ! 

When our revolutionary fathers drew the sword to establish the 
great principles they promulgated, of the right of every human being 
to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, they achieved, in their 
heroic and successful struggle for independence, the greatest triumph 
the world had then witnessed for liberty and self-government. But, 
alas ! they too soon proved that the blessings they had won were only 
to be enjoyed by the white man — they sat down under their vines 
and fig trees, and sang hosannas to the Highest for their deliverance. 
In the songs of their jubilee, they heard not " the trampled negro's 
smothered cries." 

To you and your coadjutors it was reserved to hear the groans of 
the oppressed — to cry aloud and spare not — to lift up your voices 
in the palmiest days of a haughty and prosperous nation, and pro- 
claim on the house-tops that all their righteousness was but filthy 
rags — yea, they were a stench in the nostrils of Jehovah, To you, 
and to those who have stood by you in the day of conflict, it has been 



LETTER FROM REV. DAVID THDRSTON. 145 

reserved to fight the battle of the weak against the strong; of the 
down-trodden against the mighty ; of the prisoner, scourged and tor- 
tured, against his tyrant ; of the bereaved and bleeding mother against 
the relentless wretch who robs her of her child ; of all those helpless 
babes, robbed of their birthright, and doomed to hopeless bondage, 
against the fiend who perpetrated this highest crime against God and 
Humanity. The blessing of these destitute ones will be your exceed- 
ing great reward. 

Now you stand on the height you have reached with so much toil, 
and suffering, and patience, and fortitude. In surveying the past, 
you hear the blessed language, " Well done, good and faithful ser- 
vants ! enter ye into the joy of your Lord." In surveying the pres- 
ent, the word greets your ear, "Speak to my people that they go for- 
ward." In surveying the future, you behold the glory of the Lord 
covering the earth, and you, too, may sing Hosanna to the Highest. 
Truly, if our forefathei-s did the work of noble men, nobly you have 
done the work of God in a godlike spirit. 

This blessed war is working out the salvation of the Anglo-Saxon 
as well as of the African race. The eyes of the nation are being 
anointed with the eye-salve of the King of heaven, and thousand 
voices swell the anthem of praise and thanksgiving for what has been 
done; and lips, touched with living coals from God's altar, breathe 
the prayer, " Let not thine hand spare, nor thine eye pity, till judg- 
ment be brought forth unto victory." 

This war, the holiest ever waged, is emphatically God's war; and 
whether the nation will or not, He will carry it on to its grand con- 
summation, until every American enjoys the rights claimed for him 
in our Declaration of Independence. 

Will not some hero arise, ere this conflict closes, on whom will rest 
the mantle of Toussaint L'Ouvertdre ? Earnestly do I pray that, 
from among the ranks of our colored brethren, a savior may arise, 
who will make this ^rar resplendent with his deeds of valor, courage, 
wisdom and fortitude ; and who will be deservedly hailed as the final 
Deliverer of his people. 

Yours, faithfully, 

SARAH M. GRIMKE. 



LETTER FROM REV. DAVID THURSTON. 

Litchfield Cokner, Me., Nov. 20, 1863. 
Dear Sir i 

I thank you for the invitation to the thirtieth anniversary of our 
Society at Philadelphia. I call it ours, because I aided in its organ- 
ization, and have never formally withdrawn from it. Though for 
reasons which seemed to me satisfactory, I have taken no part in its 
meetings of late, I have never departed from its principles, as stated 
in our Declaration — the immediate and entire abolition of slavery 

19 



146 APPENDIX. 

in the United States, " by all those instrumentalities sanctioned by 
law, humanity and religion ; and thus to deliver our land from its 
deadliest curse, and to wipe out the foulest stain which rests upon our 
national escutcheon." Not a month before we met at Philadelphia 
to form an Anti-Slavery Society, I had preached three sermons on 
the subject of slavery, and, among other things, said that " it ought 
immediately to cease, because its continuance is preparing the- way 
for civil war." Here I freely and thankfully acknowledge my in- 
debtedness to you for enlightening me on the horrid cruelty and 
abominable wickedness of holding and using men as articles of prop- 
erty. No human enactments (falsely called laws) can change a 
being, created with the faculties necessary to make him a moral 
agent accountable to his Creator, into an article of property, a mar- 
ketable commodity. Never have I failed to bear testimony against 
slaveholding as a practice fraught with wrongs and woes unuttera- 
able, I do not call it an institution or a system, for it is neither. 
I constantly maintain the inherent, imprescriptable right of the 
slaves to freedom. 

Because, as a nation, we have withheld from them that sacred 
right, at the same lime proclaiming our belief that all men are en- 
dowed by their Creator with the inalienable rights to life, liberty, and 
the pursuit of happiness, in the righteous Providence of God, the 
leaders in the rebellion have risen up to punish us and themselves for 
our atrocious wickedness. " Howbeit, they do not mean so, neither 
do their hearts think so." We are experiencing the scourges of the 
just indignation of God against us. Shall not we continue to feel 
them, till we remove the great, not the only, cause of them, by giv- 
ing freedom to all the enslaved? As the nation refused to do what 
Abolitionists have been laboring to have them do, these thirty years, 
Jehovah has taken the work into His hands, and He will do it effec- 
tually. What wonderful changes in regard to slavery are taking 
place ! Ecclesiastical organizations, which, heretofore, have utterly 
refused or ignored any action in relation to slavery, are now passing 
resolutions condemning the practice. Even the American Board of 
Commissioners for Foreign Missions, at their late meeting, passed, 
unanimously, a " resolution of thanks to God that the entire abolition 
of slavery on the North American Continent is an inevitable, and not 
far distant, result of the war." 

In regard to what has already been done for the overthrow of sla- 
very, and what we joyfully anticipate is to be done, we may exclaim, 
" Behold what a great matter a little fire has kindled ! " Surely, 
the agency of God is to be devoutly recognized and gratefully ac- 
knowledged in these changes. "He is pouring contempt upon 
princes, and setting the poor on high from affliction, and making him 
families like a flock. The righteous see it and rejoice, and all ini- 
quity shall stop her mouth. He disappointeth the devices of the 
crafty, so that their hands cannot perform their enterprise." 

Probably not many of those whose names are attached to our Dec- 
laration still survive. I may be one of the oldest, having past my 
ei'jhty-fo^i.rth year nine months, and still able to plead the cause of 



LETTER FROM GEO. E. BAKER. 147 

the oppressed. Gladly would I be with you on the 3d and 4th of 
December, to recount some of the conflicts, trials, discouragements 
and hopes, through which our cause has passed. Surely, we may 
" thank God and take courage," for the right will \iltimately prevail. 
Domestic affliction must prevent my personal attendance. Give my 
kind regards to those pioneers in the good Abolition cause, who may 
be present at the contemplated meeting. I rejoice with them in the 
brightening prospect of having our country freed from that most in- 
human and flagitiously wicked practice, which has exerted such a 
fearfully demoralizing influence through the whole land. 

Ou behalf of the oppressed, I am truly with you, 

DAVID THURSTON. 

Wm. Lloyd Garrison. 



LETTER FROM GEORGE E. BAKER. 

Wasuington, Dec. 2, 1863. 
Gentlemen : 

Your invitation to attend the celebration of the Third Decade of 
the iVmerican Anti-Slavery Society was received by me with grateful 
feelings. Circumstances prevent my accepting it. Cheering as the 
prospect now is of the abolition of American slavery, there never 
was a time more favorable for a bold discussion of its nature and 
evils, nor a time when such discussion was more necessary. The 
people need a fuller appreciation of the intrinsic wickedness of sla- 
very. John Wesley indulged in no figure of speech when he said, 
" American slavery is the sum of all villanies." He spoke truly and 
literally. If we could add up, as we add up a column of figures, 
IMurder, Theft, Adultery, Fraud, etc., the total would be — Slavery. 
The slaveholder is guilty, not of one of the great sins only, but of all 
combined. Yet how many regard slavery chiefly as an economic 
evil, a question of expediency ! 

The rapid extinction of slavery now going on, at such fearful cost 
of blood and treasure, was foreseen by some of our great statesmen. 
They seem to have been of two classes. Mr. Everett, in his Get- 
tysburg Oration, intimates that he saw it, and strove, " perhaps too 
long," to avert the catastrophe by compromise. He represents one, 
and much the larger, class. 

Mr. Seward, on the other hand, saw the result forty years ago, 
and sought to save the country from convulsion and war by constant- 
ly raising his voice of warning, and by counselling the putting away 
of slavery through peaceful measures. To this end, with a small 
minority of his fellow-citizens, he labored. To this end, also, Chan- 
NiNG, Garrison, Gerrit Smith, Sdmner and others wrote and spoke. 
"Man proposes, but God disposes." An almighty Power has taken 
the work from finite hands, and now we wait for the salvation of 
God. Your friend and servant, 

GEO. E. BAKER. 



148 APPENDIX. 

LETTER FROM JOSHUA COFFIN. 

Newbury, (Mass.) Nov. 30, 1863. 
Dear Garrison : 

* * * What changes have taken place since December, 1833, 
and who then supposed that slavery would receive its death-blow by 
the hands of slavery itself? The first gun fired at Sumter was the 
death-knell of slavery. It will die hard, but die it must, although it 
may take a long time yet before the dying carcase is entirely dead, 
or buried beyond the hope of resurrection. As it is every day re- 
vealing its detestable character, it is every day changing the opinions 
of thousands, who have hitherto, like the priest and Levite, passed by 
on the other side, and been determined not to trouble themselves 
with such little things as the " nigger " question. 

I wish I could be with you in Philadelphia this week ; but as I 
cannot be with you in the flesh, I shall be with you in the spirit. 
I wish you a successful meeting, and hope that ere another decade 
shall have passed, the triumph of anti-slavery principles will be com- 
plete, and that the whole continent will join in the jubilee song, hav- 
ing been "regenerated and disenthralled by the irresistible genius of 
universal emancipation," directed as it undoubtedly has been by God's 
goodness, "whose ways are not as our ways, nor His thoughts as our 
thoughts." The counsels of Ahithophel have been turned to foolish- 
ness, and, like him, the leaders of the rebellion are hanging them- 
selves. Please give my respects to all who may inquire about me, 
whom I formerly knew in Philadelphia, especially those who signed 
the Declaration in 1833. I wish I could see them all, and hear the 
addresses, and shake hands with those whom you may see and hear. 
But enough. Success to you, and may you and I live to see the con- 
summation of our wishes ! 

Yours, truly, JOSHUA COFFIN. 



LETTER FROM JOHN M. LANGSTON. 

Oberlin, Dec. 3, 1863. 
William Lloyd Garrison, Esq. : 

Dear Sir, — Accept my thanks for your earnest and manly eff'orts 
in behalf of the American slave. You and your noble coadjutors 
have brought our whole land under lasting gratitude to you. It 
would afibrd me vast pleasure to be in Philadelphia to-day to aid in 
commemorating the Thirtieth Anniversary of the American Anti- 
Slavery Society. Ill health prevents my being with you to-morrow. 
Up to last evening, I had hoped to be with you. I can now only 
thank you for your kind invitation fo be present, and thank you for 
what, under God, you have been able to do for the American people 
and the American slave. For in laboring to secure the emancipa- 
tion of the slave, you achieved the enfranchisement of all the people. 
And let all the people be grateful ! 

Yours, for God and Humanity, JOHN M. LANGSTON. 



REVIEW OF THE ANTI-SLAVERY STRUGGLE. 149 

[From the New Vork Tribune of December 3, 18C3.] 

THE ANTI-SLAVERY ANNIVERSARY AT PHILA- 
DELPHIA. 

Thirty years ago to-day, a few men met in Philadelphia to form 
the American Anti-Slavery Society. The Convention was not only 
small in numbers, but, with rare exceptions, its members were un- 
known beyond their own neighborhoods. The most conspicuous were 
the Piev. Bkkiah Green, then recently Professor of Sacred Litera- 
ture in Western Reserve College ; Lkwis Tappan, an enterprising 
merchant of this city; John G. Wiiittier, the Quaker poet; Wm. 
Lloyd Garrison, then as now the editor of the Boston Liberator ; 
Dr. A. L. Cox, a skillful physician of this city ; Samuel J. May and 
Amos A. Phelps, clergymen of Massachusetts; William Goodell, 
then editor of the Genius of Temperance ; Elizur Wright, Jr., 
since known as the translator of La Fontaine ; the Rev. S. S. Joce- 
lyn, of this city, and Dr. E, A. Atlee and J. Miller McKim, of 
Philadelphia. The Convention numbered sixty-two persons, from 
ten States. Prof Green officiated as President, and Messrs. Tappan 
and Whittier as Secretaries. A Declaration of Principles and 
Purposes, from the emphatic and eloquent pen of Mr. Garrison, was 
adopted, and "The American Anti-Slavery Society," based on the 
doctrine of immediate emancipation without expatriation, organized. 
The officers of the Society were then chosen. Its President was 
Arthur Tappan, the senior partner of one of our oldest mercantile 
firms, and widely known for his munificent contributions to the reli- 
gious and benevolent institutions of the country. Among its other 
officers were Samuel Fessenden, the head of the Maine bar, and the 
father of the present able Senator in Congress from that State, the 
Rev. Dr. Lord, President of Dartmouth College, Professors Fitch 
and IvES, of Yale College, Benjamin Lundy, one of the earliest 
anti-slavery pioneers, Joshua Leavitt, the editor successively of the 
New York Evangelist, The Emancipator, and The Independent, 
Professor Shepard, of Bangor Theological Seminary, Theodore D. 
Weld, and Ellis Gray Loring, David Lee Child, and Samuel 
E. Sewall, members of the Boston bar. Looking confidently into 
the future, the Declaration of the Convention, signed by all its mem- 
bers, proclaimed : " Our trust for victory is solely in God. We may 
be personally defeated, but our principles never. Truth, Justice, 
Reason, Humanity, must and will gloriously triumph." In a sketch 
of the proceedings of the Convention, a leading delegate, through an 
anti-slavery periodical, said: "The memliers of the Convention and 
their associates will never cease from their labors till their cause is 
triumphant. The God of Truth and Justice is with them, and will 
finally prevail." 

No reflecting man can doubt that the historian of the conflict be- 
tween Freedom and Slavery which has convulsed this nation for the 



150 APPENDIX. 

last thirty years will assign a very important part in the great 
movement to the Society whose organization we have briefly sketched. 
From the start, it entered upon its seemingly almost hopeless work 
with an energy and a will that nothing could discourage or dismay. 
In the language of Mr. Garrison, " it would be heard." 

Its first battle was for freedom of speech and the press. And, in 
the face of riots and lynchings, and murders even, and while its 
meetings were broken up by mobs, and its presses thrown into rivers, 
and its orators and editors shut up in prisons or shot down at their 
posts, it fought out this fight during five or six years with a persist- 
ency and a courage which have few parallels in the annals of progress 
and reform. The heroism of this small body of proscribed men and 
women wrun* plaudits from their opponents. The late William 
Leggett wrote of them, twenty-eight years ago : " It would seem as 
if God had winnowed the population of the country to select a choice 
few, whom nothing can drive from the exercise of their right to dis- 
cuss the question of slavery." Commenting upon the anti-abolition 
riots that disgraced this city in 1834-, during which the house of 
Lewis Tappan was sacked and his furniture reduced to ashes, Mr. 
Charles King, then editor of the New York Avierican, said, 
»' Fire cannot burn their convictions out of these men." Nor did it ! 
Unseduced by blandishments, and undeterred by violence, the Aboli- 
tionists kept straight on, urging their obnoxious doctrines upon public 
attention, not always in the mildest terms nor with the sweetest tem- 
per, but with stern facts and sturdy arguments, until they compelled 
the nation to stand still and listen. 

Mingling with this contest for free speech and free printing, 
though initiated at a little later period in the conflict, was the mem- 
orable struggle for the right of petition. In 1835 and 1836, the 
Anti-Slavery societies began to petition Congress for the abolition of 
slavery in the District of Columbia, and the inhibition of the inter- 
State slave trade, and kindred measures. Though few at the outset, 
the number of petitioners swelled during the next two or three years 
till it reached in one Congress three-fourths of a million. It would 
belie obvious facts to call all these petitioners " Abolitionists." In 
the defence of the right of petition, as also that of ths freedom of 
speech and the press, it became evident to considerate men that not 
alone was the right to discuss and petition in regard to slavery in- 
volved, but that vital constitutional principles were at stake, and 
that these must be defended against their assailants, irrespective of 
the merits of the particular subject over which the battle was waged, 
or the popularity or prestige of the persons whose privileges were 
put in peril. 

It was upon these broad grounds that the venerable John Quincy 
Adams early became the champion of freedom of debate and the 
right of petition in the House of Representatives, where, for twelve 
years, he grappled with the Slave Power, making, not America only, 
but the civilized world, resound with the clash of the conflict. 
Doubtless posterity will regard this as the most honorable and bri!- 



REVIEW OF THE ANTI-SLAVERY STRUGGLE. 151 

liant chapter in the long and eventful life of this extraordinary man.. 
The service he rendered to the cause of Freedom during these years 
■wa.s of incalculable value. The exalted positions he had held, his 
multifarious learning, his world-wide renown, lent lustre to the cause, 
while his exhaustiess resources, his skill in debate, his dauntless 
courage and indomitable will, were a tower of strength to its friends, 
and a never-failing source of mortification and discomfiture to its 
foes. 

The freedom of speech and debate, and the right of petition, had 
hardly been secured, before the subject of the annexation of Texas, 
and tbe consequent enlargement of the area of slavery, arrested the 
public attention. While thousands of our best and wisest men of all 
creeds and parties early took alarm at this attempt to commit the 
country to a policy of aggression upon the rights of foreign States, 
it is due to truth to say that the Abolitionists and their immediate 
coadjutors were the only classes who resisted annexation upon purely 
anti-slavery grounds. This contest, opening in 1837, continued, with 
occasional lulls, until the Presidential campaign of 1844, when it 
largely mingled in the discussions of the two parties that divided the 
country, the conspirators against national honor achieving a triumph 
in the election of James K. Polk over Henry Clay. 

It was now eleven years since the American Anti-iSlavery Society 
was formed. During this period, kindred societies had been organ- 
ized in every considerable town and village in the Free States, whose 
members numbered scores of thousands. These associations had em- 
ployed hundreds of agents, who had traversed the country delivering 
addresses in all the principal centres of population. They had es- 
tablished newspapers in all the Northern States, and had circulated 
pamphlets and tracts by the million. Not only had they petitioned 
Congress, but they had besieged the Legislatures of the Free States, 
demanding that they themselves memorialize Congress in behalf of 
Emancipation, and protest against the abridgment of the right of 
debate and petition, and the annexation of Texas to the Union. 
Vermont and Massachusetts responded favorably to their demands in 
1837, and other States subsequently copied their example, till at one 
period the Legislature of every State, not hopelessly bound in the 
fetters of a pro-slavery democracy, spoke words more or less em- 
phatic for the slave and his champions. The Abolitionists had also 
made their power felt at the ballot-box, either by voting for the most 
acceptable candidates of the "Whig and Democratic parties, or by 
bringing out candidates of their own. Their principles had likewise 
made a strong lodgment in the leading religious denominations of the 
country. Indeed, at the period of the inauguration of Mr. Polk, 
and the consequent consummation of the Texas villany, neither 
House of Congress, no State Legislature, no ecclesiastical body, no 
educational convention, no benevolent society, no political assemblage, 
could meet without finding itself launched upon a wide sea of discus- 
sion concerning slavery. The most superficial observer could not 
fail to see, nor the most indifferent spectator to feel, that the princi- 



152 APPENDIX. 

pies of the Abolitionists, after passing through the ordeal of long 
years of reproach and persecution, had taken fast hold upon the in- 
tellect and conscience of great masses of the American people. 

The annexation of Texas was followed bj the Mexican war, which 
brought in its train large accessions of territory. The whole nation 
was now compelled to stand face to face with the long dreaded and 
much avoided subject of slavery. Congress and the country were 
convulsed. The greatest minds of the times were forced to grapple 
with the agitating theme. The discussion summoned to the forum 
the loftiest statesmanship ; it sent to the closet the ripest scholarship ; 
it levied contributions upon the eloquence, the learning, the genius 
of the Senate, the Synod and the School, until all ranks and condi- 
tions of men were involved in the agitation. 

After the advent of the Wilmot Proviso in 1847-8, the slavery 
agitation passed beyond the pale of the Abolitionists. Yet, from 
that important epoch onward till secession reared its treasonable 
crest, not a fundamental argument was employed against slavery, nor 
a vital principle enunciated, nor a sound view of the Constitution ex- 
hibited, nor an important fact presented, nor a prime objection an- 
swered, nor a glowing appeal in behalf of liberty uttered, which had 
not been previously employed, enunciated, exhibited, presented, an- 
swered and uttered by the Abolitionists. So true is this, that to 
minds familiar with the anti-slavery literature of the era, the 
speeches and prelections of those statesmen and orators who, for the 
last twelve or fifteen years, have fulmined in the Senate and on the 
rostrum, while spurning the imputation of being " Abolitionists," 
have seemed to be the cast-off robes, furbished up for the occasion, of 
the very class whom they affected to repudiate, if not despise. 

During the Wilmot Proviso struggle, and its closely following 
contest over the compromise measures of 1850, the radical anti- 
slavery politicians of the country organized the Free-Soil party, the 
voting Abolitionists generally rallying to its support. Four years 
later, the Slave Power dictated the repeal of the Missouri Compro- 
mise, which speedily bore its natural fruit in the raids and rascali- 
ties, the frauds and felonies perpetrated in Kansas. These crimes 
stimulated to action the spirit of Northern freemen. They combined 
to resist these outrages upon Liberty and Law, and gave body and 
form to their determination by organizing the Republican party. At 
the election of 1856, the Slave Oligarchy triumphed, and triumphed, 
thank God, for the last time in a Presidential contest. Not heeding 
the ominous gathering in the Northern skies, the conspirators cele- 
brated their triumph by endeavoring to sacrifice Human Freedom on 
the altar of the Dred Scott infamy, and to crucify Representative 
government on the Lecompton swindle. The sequel is known. The 
anti-slavery sentiment of the country was equal to the exigency. It 
consolidated its ranks. Douglas revolted, split the Democracy in 
twain, and Abraham Lincoln took the Presidential chair. 

Throughout the series of great events we have noticed, the course 
of the Abolitionists was marvellously direct and straight-forward. 



WM. LLOYD GARRISON AND HENRY CLAY. 15o 

They aimed their blows right at the core of slavery, denouncing it as 
a sin whose only appropriate remedy was immediate and uncondi- 
tional repentance. Amid convulsions that made the continent trem- 
ble, this small band of reformers pursued their line of jiolicy with a 
directness that finds its fitting illustration in the parallel of latitude, 
which crosses wide oceans, climbs high mountains, penetrates deep 
valleys, and traverses broad plains, without variableness or shadow of 
turning. Yet, notwithstanding this, it requires no spirit of divina- 
tion to perceive that the organization of the Anti-Slavery Society in 
1833, and the election of a Republican President in 18G0, bear to 
each other the relation of remote cause and ultimate eifect. 

We utter no eulogium upon the Abolitionists. Posterity will do 
them justice, awarding praise and blame with impartial hand. Like 
other reformers, some of them have sometimes been impatient if not 
intolerant of those who were less ({uick to see, less keen to feel, less 
prompt to act than themselves. Their great work hastens to comple- 
tion. We venture the prediction, that if any of those who aided in 
forming the Society of 1833 shall live till a third of a century shall 
have passed since that event, they will greet a day whose rising sun 
will not shed his beams upon a single negro slave in ull our broad 
land. 



[A. -p. 6.] 

Since this speech was made, John Greenlkaf Whittier has sent 
to the Editor of the Boston Tra?iscript the following letter, by 
which it appears that Mr. Garrison would have been liberated from 
prison by Hknry Clay, had he not been anticipated by Arthur 
Tappan. The fact is of some historical interest. 



The editor of the Louisville (Ky.) Journal, in an article on the 
release of the editor of The Liberator from prison in Baltimore, in 
1830, makes the following statement : — 

"Mr. Clav related to us the facts in July, 1830. A few months before, Mr. 
Gakriso-V, editor of an erDiiucipation paper in Baltimore, \yas jirosecuted, impris- 
oned, and fined for a libel on Woolfolk. Not being able to pay the fine, his im- 
prisonment was prolonged on that account. Mr. Whittiek, an entire stranger to 
Mr. Clay, wrote to him as a philanthropist, begging him to pay the fine, and thus 
procure Mr. GrAiiiusox's release. Mr. Clay wrote to bis old friend, Uezekiah 
NiLES, of Ailcs's Reyister, asking whether Mr. Gakkisox was a worthy man, and 
saying that, if he was so, he would pay one half the fine, provided Mr. Niles or 
others would pay the other half. Mr. Niles wrote back, stating that, on the 
whole, he thought Mr. Garrison worthy. Mr. Clay at once remitted the money 
for half of the fine, the other half was paid, and Garrison wa.« discharged. 

" It is not pleasant to have to add, that, some time afterwards, both ^Vi^n vieu 
and Garrison wrote bitter things against Mr. Clay." 

20 



154: APl'ENDIX. 

The facts in the case are simply these : During the imprisonment 
of my friend CIarrtson, I ventured to address a line to Henry Clay, 
asking him to use his influence with his political and personal friends 
in Baltimore to procure his release. I neither asked nor expected 
him to pay himself the fine and costs. I had no definite idea upon 
what terms, if at all, his release could be effected, or whether, in the 
words of Dumbedikes to Jeanie Deans, >' Siller would do it." Mj 
appeal, wisely or otherwise, was made to a distinguished political 
man in behalf of one of his most ardent supporters, who must have 
been already known to him as the first editor in New England to 
nominate him for the Presidency, in an able and vigorous article 
published in the Bennington (Vt.) Journal of the Times, of March 
27, 1829, and which was widely copied and commended. It is 
proper to say that my letter was written without the knowledge of 
my friend GtARRIson. 

In a letter which I received some time after from the Kentucky 
statesman, he informed me that he had written to a friend in Balti- 
more, in conformity with ray wishes ; but that he had just learned 
from his correspondent that he had been anticipated, and that the 
liberation had been effected without the aid he would otherwise have 
given. The fine and costs were in fact paid by Arthur Tappan, 
Esq., of jSew York. 

The promptness of Henry Clay's response to my appeal was 
honorable in itself, and characteristic of one who was always true to 
his political and personal friends. The implied charge of ingratitude 
suggested by my old friend Prentice is perhaps hardly worth no- 
ticmg. What Henry Clay proposed to do for Garrison was no 
more than he would have done, and should have done, for any one 
who had established a similar claim upon his favor. As to myself, 
I could scarcely be said to be an " e7itire stranger " to him ; for young 
and obscure as I was, I had in the Boston Mamifacturer advocated 
his claims with such zeal and earnestness, that I was selected as the 
successor of the editor of the journal him.self, and in the Hartford 
(Ct.) "JV. E. Review" assisted, as he will doubtless rememSer, in 
writing "The Life of Henry Clay," and declined, on account of ill- 
ness, an invitation from the National Republican Committee to fill 
a vacancy in the delegation of Connecticut to the Convention which 
nominated him in 1831. I mention this merely to show that my 
letter, under the circumstances, was not altogether boyish presumption. 

That, in the progress of the great struggle between Freedom and 
Slavery, both Gtarrison and myself have felt compelled to speak 
freely of the position and avowed sentiments of Henry Clay, is cer- 
tainly true. But for myself, I can say that this was always done 
more in sorrow than in anger, and accompanied with a profound re- 
gret that one in many respects so noble, and endowed with such won- 
derful gifts, should allow his great influence to be felt in support of 
a system which his reason and conscience condemned. 

JOHN G. WHITTIER. 

Amesbuky, 1-llh 3d nio., 1861. 



SIGNERS OF TlIK DKCLARATrON OK SENTIMKNTS. 



155 



[B.— p. 40.] 



ORIGINAL SIGNEllS OF THE DECLARATION OF SENTIMENTS. 

(Those marked with an asterisk have deceased.) 

Maine. 



DavU) Thdrston, 
Nathan Winslow,* 



JOSUPH SuUTHWICK, 

James ¥. Oris, 
Isaac Winslow. 

New Hampshire. 
David Cambell.* 

Vermont. 
Orson S. Mlukay. 



MassachiaietC)!. 



David S. Southjiayd,* 
Effingham L. Capkon,* 
Joshua Coffin, 
Amos A. Phelps,* 
John G. Whiitieu, 
Horace P. 'Wakefield, 



James G. Baubadoes,* 
David T. Kimball, Jii., 
Daniel E. Jcwett, 
John PvEid Cambell,* 
Nathaniel Southard,* 
Arnold Buffum,* 



John Prentice, 



William Lloyd Garrison. 

Rliode Island. 
George W. Benson, 



R.AY Potter.* 



Connecticut. 



Samuel Joseph May, 
Alpheus Kingsley, 



Edwin A. Stillman, 
Simeon S. Jocelyn, 



Beriah Green, 
Lewis Tappan, » 

John Rankin, 
William Green, Jr., 
Abraham L. Cox, 

JoNA. Parkhurst,* 

Evan Lewis,* 
Edwin A. Atlee,* 
Robert Purvis, 
.Tames McCrummell, 
Thomas Shii>ley, 
]5autholomew Fussell, 
Enoch Mack, 
John McCollough, 
James M. McKim, 



.Toiiv M. Sterltnt,, 



Robert Bernard Hall. 

New York. 

William Goodell, 
Elizur Wright, Jr., 
Charles W. Denison, 
George Bourne,* 
John Frost.* 
New Jersey. 
Chalkley Gillingham, James White.* 

Pennsylvania. 

Aaron Vickers, 
James Loughhead, 
John R. Sleeper, 
Thomas Whitson, 
Edwin P. Atlee,* 
John Shari>, Jr., 
David Jones, 
Lucas Gillingham, 
James Mott, 

Sumner Stebbins. 
Ohio. 

Mii.TON Sutliff, Levi Sutliff. 



15i5 Ai'PENinx. 



A NORTHERN SONa. 

BY JOHN G. WHITTIER. 

Now joy and thanks for evermore ! 

The dreary night has well-nigh |)assed ; 
The slumbers of the North are o'er, 

The giant stands erect at last ! 

jMore than we hoped in that dark time, 
When faint with watching, few and worn, 

We saw no welcome day-star climb 
The cold gray pathway of the morn. 

O, weary hours ! O, night of years ! 

What storms our darkling pathway swept, 
Wiiere, beating back our thronging fears. 

By faith alone our march we kept ! 

How jeered the scofBng crowd behind. 
How mocked before the tyrant train. 

As, one by one, the true and kind 
Fell fainting in our path of pain ! 

They died — their brave hearts breaking slow - 

But, self-f.)rgetful to the last. 
In words of cheer and bugle-glow. 

Their breath upon the darkness passed ! 

A mighty host on either hand 

Stood waiting for the dawn of day. 

To crush like reeds our feeble band !' — 

The morn has come — and where are they ? 

Troop after troop its line forsakes, 

With peace-white banners waving free, 

And from our own the glad shout breaks, 
Of " Freedom and Fraternity ! " 

Like mist before the growing light, 

The hostile cohorts melt away : 
Hurrah ! our foemen of the night 

Are brothers at the dawn of day ! 

As unto these repentant ones 

We open wide our foil-worn ranks, 

Along our line a murmur runs 

Of song, and praise, and grateful thanks. 



'^V 



CATALOaUE 

OF 

ANTI-SLAYERY PUBLICATIO.NS IN AIEEICA. 



[The following lift docs not pretend to completeness. On the contrary, a full list 
of works printed, or reprinted, in the United States on the subject of slavery, with 
a view to its abolition, would probably swell to nearly double the length of this. 
It goes forth, however, as the commencement of a better one. Titles of anti-sla- 
very works, not included in this'list, with names of authors, (where known,) and 
dates and places of publication, may be communicated to Samurl May, .Jr., 221 
AVashington street, Boston.] 

1750 — 1830. 

Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes, etc. By John Woodian. 1754 to 17G2. 

Anthony Benezet wrote and published on Slavery, between 1750 and 1774. A 
small tract of extracts : Philadelphia, 1858. 

Notes on the State of Virginia. With an Appendix. By Thomas Jefferson. 
1787. [The 8th edition appeared in 1801.] 

Various publications by Dr. BenjamIiN Franklin and Dr. Ben.iamin Rush ap- 
peared soon after 1787. 

Constitution of a Society for Abolishing the Slave Trade. With several Acts of the 
Legislatures of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, for that purpose, 
pp. 19. Providence. Printed by John Carter. 1789. 

The Injustice and Impolicy of the Slave Trade, and of the Slavery of the Afri- 
cans, illustrated in a Sermon before the Connecticut Society for the Promotion of 
Freedom and for the Relief of Persons unlawfully holden in Bondage ; at their 
Annual Meeting in New Haven, September 15, 17'J1. By Jonathan Edwards, 
D. D. [the younger.] 

A Portraiture of Douiestic Slavery in the United States. By Jesse Torrey, Jun. 
Philadelphia, 1817. 

Memoirs of Naijibanna, an African Prince. Philadelphia. 1799. 

Horrors of Slavery : in Two Parts. By John Kenrick. Cambridge. 1817. "A 
copy of this work was placed by the author on the desk of every member of Con- 
gress when it was published." 

Free Remarks, &c., respecting the Exclusion of Slavery from the Territoriis and 
New States. By a Philadelphian. 1819. 

Speech of Mr. Plumeb, of New Hampshire, (in Congress,) on the Missouri Ques- 
tion, Feb. 21, 1820. 

Reflections occasioned by the late Disturbances in Charleston. By Achates. 
Charleston, S. C, 1822. "Ascribed to the pen of Gen. Thomas Pinkney." — 
Lundy's Genius of Universal Emancipation, vol. 1, p. 147. 

Oration on the Abolition of the Slave Trade. By Jeremiah Gloucester. Phila- 
delphia. 1823. 

Remarks Addressed to the Citizens of Illinois on the Proposed Introduction of Sla- 
very. [About 1824.] 



V 



l')8 CATALOCrr. OK AN'TI-SI,AVERY 

Inforination concerning the Present State of the Slave Trade. 1824. 

A Treatise on Slavery, showing the Evil of Slaveholding, &o. Ac. By James 
DnscAN. 1824. Republished, 1840. 

Information for the Free People of Colour who are inclined to Emigrate to Hayti. 
Philadelphia. 1823. 

Remarks on Slavery in the United States. From the Christian Examiner. By S. 
E. Sewall. 1827. 

A Sketch of the Laws relating to Slavery. By George M. Stroud. 1827. [2d 
edition, abridged. Philadelphia, 1856. 12 mo., pp. 125.] 

Memorial of Inhabitants of the District of Columbia, praying for the Gradual Ab- 
olition of Slavery there. 1828. 

Walker's Appeal ; in Pour Articles, together with a Preamble to the Colored Cit- 
izens of the World, but in particular and very expressly to those of the United 
States of America. Written in Boston, in the State of Massachusetts, Sept. 28, 
1829. By David Walker. 
^ Speech of Hon. Charles Miner, of Pennsylvania, in U. S. House of Representa- 
tives. 1829. [Reprinted at Bethania, Pa., 1832.] 

Remarks on the Character of Elias Hicks and his Exertions in the Abolition of Sla- 
very. 1830. 

18 31. 

Discourse on Slavery in the United States. By Samuel J. May. 

Address, delivered to the Free People of Colour in Philadelphia, New York, and 
other cities, during the month of June, 1831. By Wm. Lloyd Garrison. 

The Practicability of the Abolition of Slavery. A Lecture at Stockbridge. By 
H. D. Sedgwick, Esq. 

Address to Christians of all Denominations on the Inconsistency of Admitting 
Slaveholders to Communion and Church Membership. By Evan Lewis. Phila- 
delphia, pp. 19. 

Fragment of a Letter on the Slavery of the Negroes, written in 1776 ; by Thomas 
Day, Esq., Author of " Sandford and Merton." 

Authentic and Impartial Narrative of the Tragical Scene in Southampton County 
Va., Aug. 22d, 1830. [The Southampton Insurrection.] By Samuel Warner. 

18 3 2. 

Thoughts on African Colonization. By Wm. Lloyd Garrison. 

Four Sermons, at Western Reserve College. By Beriah Green. [November and 
December.] 

Speech of John Thompson Brown, in the House of Delegates of Virginia, on the 
Abolition of Slavery, Jan. 18, 1832. Richmond. 

Speech of William H. Brodnax, in the House of Delegates of Virginia, on the 
Policy of the State with respect to its Colored Population, Jan. 19, 1832. Rich- 
mond. 

Review of the Debate in the Virginia Legislature of 1831 and 1832. By Thomas 
R. Dew, Professor in William and Mary College. Richmond. 

A Plea for the Slave. To all Professing Christians in America. 

Epistle from the Yearly Meeting of Friends in Philadelphia to the People of Colour. 

Letters on the Colonization Societ3', and Its Probable Results. By M. Carey. 

183 3. 

The Right of Colored People to Education Vindicated. Letters to Andrew T. 
JuDsoN, Esq., and others, in Canterbury, (Conn.) relative to Miss Ckandall and 
Her School for Colored Females. By Samuel J. May. 



PrBLICATIOXS IX AMKRICA. ]59 

Detail of Plan for Improvempnt of Negroes on Plantations. By Tuomas S. Clat. 
•s/ Letters on Slavery. By Rev. J. D. Paxton. 

Constitution of the American Anti-Slavery Sociotv; with the Declaration of Sen- 
timents, and Address to the Public, issued by the Executive Committee. 
^^ An .\ppeal in Favor of that Class of Americans called Africans. By Mrs. Cnu.n. 

Exposition of Anti-Slavery Principles and Plans. By Rev. S. .1. May. 

The Sin of Slavery and its Remedy. By Elizur Wright, Jr., Professor in Western 
Reserve (^illege. 

Speeches at the .Anti-Colonixation Meeting in London, -July 18, IS"."!, by Croi-pek, 
(tarrisox, O'Coxneli., and others. 

Address in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, before the Free People of Color, 
in April, isn:'.. By Wm. Lloyd Garkisov. 

The West India Que.-tion. By Chaui.es Stuart. 

Facts proving the good conduct and prosperity of Emancipated Negroe.s. 

The Despotism of Freedom ; — or American Slavery the worst in the world. Ad- 
dress by David L. Child. 

Strictures on African Slavery. By Sa.miel Crothers. 

Justice and Expediency ; or Slavery considered with a view to its rightful remedy. 
By .J. G. Whtttter. 

Reply to the Richmond (Va.) Jrffersnnian and Timts. By J. (t. Whittier. 

Memorial of Free People of Color of Philadelphia to the Senate and Representatives 
of Pennsylvania. 

Address to the Coloured People of Philadelphia. By Evan Lewis. 

Sketch of the Character and Defence of the Principles of William Lloyd Garri. 
PON. An Address before the Jlaine Anti-Slavery Society. By Jame.s F. Otis. 

Address to the Citizens of Philadelphia, on Slavery. By Edwin P. Atlee. 

Fruits of Colonizationism. The Canterbury [Conn.] Persecution. 

1834. 

Letter to the Editors of the Christian Examiner. By Rev. Saml'EL .J. May. 
The Maryland Scheme of Expatriation Examined. By a Friend of Liberty. 
Report of the Arguments of Counsel in the ease of Prudence Craxdall. 
Man-stealing and Slavery denounced by the Presbyterian and Methodist Churches. 

By Rev. George Bourne. 
Address of the Starkborough^nd Lincoln Anti-Slavery Societies. 
Brief Sketch of the trial of Wm. Lloyd Garrison for an alleged libel on Fran- 

CIS Todd. 
Letter to the Churches. By James G. Birney. 
Sermon by Rev. James T. Dickinson, at Norwich, Conn., July 4th. 
Oration on the 1st August, at South Reading, Mass. By David L. Child. 
Appeal to the New England and New Hampshire Methodist Conferences. By 

Shipley W. Wili.son and others. 
Eulogium upon Wilberforce. By David Paul Bkow.v. *" 
Letter on Colonization. By Hon. James G. Birney. 
•Pictures of Slavery. By Rev. George Bourne. 

Debate at Lane Seminary ; Speech of J. A. Thome, and Letter of Dr. S. H. Cox. 
Address before the Salem Anti-Slavery Society. By Cyrus P. Grosvenor. 
Constitution of the Ncwburyport Anti-Slavery Society. 

The Gospel rf the Typical Servitude. By Samuel Crothers, Greenfield, Ohio. 
-" The Oasis. By Mrs. L. M. Child. 

Lectures on Slavery and it? Kcniedy. By Amos A. Phelps. 



160 CATALOGUE OF ANTI-SLAVERY 

Remarks on Slavery and Emancipation. Boston. 

George Fox and his First Disciples ; or the Society of Friends as it was and as it 

is. By William Howitt. [From Tait'x Magazine.} 
Review of J. W. Nevin's Summary, &c. By Rev. James H. Dickey, of Salem, 

Ross County, Ohio. 
James G. Birney's First and Second Letters to the Ministry and Elders of the 

Presbyterian Church. 
Statement of the Reasons which induced the Students of Lane Seminary to Dissolve 

their Connexion, Ac. 

1835. 

Address at Middlebury, by requ st of Vermont Anti-Slavery Society. By Oliver 
^ Johnson. 
"^' Inquiry into the Character and Tendenc_y of the American Colonization and the 

American Anti-Slavery Societies. By Judge M'm. Jay. 
^ Testimony of God against Slavery, &o. &c. By Rev. LaRoy Sunderland. 

Letter to a Member of Congress, from an English Clergyman. 
-■ Slavery. By William E. Channing. 18 mo., pp. 167. 

Report on ttie Condition of Colored People in the State of Ohio. 
Fast Day Sermon on Slavery in Dover, N. H. By Rev. David Root. 
i/' The Enemies of the Constitution Discovered. By Defensor. 

Mob, under Pretence of Law ; Trial of Rev. George Storrs at Northfield, N. II. 

Liberty Triumphant ; a Sermon at Haverhill, by Rev. David Root. 

Address before the Foundry Missionary Society, AVashingtou, Jan. 15, 183.5. By 

Rev. G. G. Cookman, of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 
The Book and Slavery Irreconcileable. By Rev. George Bourne. 
Address to the Members of the Religious Society of Friends, on the Duty of De- 
clining the Use of the Products of Slave Labour. By Charles Marriott. 

1836. 

Proceedings of the Rhode Island Anti-i^lavery Convention, February, 183G. With 
a "Declaration," &c., by William Goodell. 

Things for Northern Men to Do. By Beriaii Green. 
> ' Remarks by Samuel Hoar, of Massachusetts, in the House of Representatives, 
January, 183G. [Slavery and the Right of Petition.] 

Account of Interviews between Committee of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Soci- 
ety and the Committee of the Legislature. 

A Full Statement of the Reasons which were in part offered to the Committee of Iho 
Legislature of Massachusetts, &o. <fec. &c. 
- Slavery and the Domestic Slave Trade. By Prof. E. A. Andrews. 

Songs of the Free, and Hymns of Christian Freedom. Compiled by M. AV. Chap- 
man. 

Review of Remarks on Dr. Channing's "Slavery"; by a Citizen of Massachusett.-!. 

Freedom's Defence ; or a Candid Examination of Hon. John C. Calhoun's liepoi t on 
the Freedom of the Press. By Cincinnatus. 
^ Synod of Kentucky's Plan of Emancipation. 

Collection of [Five] Valuable Documents. [Birney's Third Letter, &c. Ac] 

Review, by a Pittsburgher, of a Pamphlet on Slavery, from the Biblical Repertory 

Plea before C. J. Shaw, in the case of Commonwealth vs. Thomas Aves. By Ellis 
Gray Loeing. 

Discussion on American Slavery between George Thompson, Esq., and Rev. Robeut 
J. Breckinridge, in Glasgow ; with an Appendix, by Charles C. BuKL^:ll.H. 
Boston : Isaac Kuapp. 



PUBLICATIONS IN AMERICA. 161 

Trial of Reuben '^randall, M. D., for circulating Anti-Slavery Publications. 

Tho War in Texas, &c., the Result of a long premeditated crusade against the 

Government by Slaveholders, Ac. 

Anti-Slavery Catechism. ^ ,, ^ ,, 

. .1 ^- A 1 * r A • ci / Ey Mrs. L. Maria Child. 

Authentic Anecdotes ot American olavery. f •' 

„ ., „ ^,, , r^ r oi } (Some of these, perhaps, of an car- 
Evils of Slavery and Cure of Slavery. i ^ > t- i > 

m 17 t • ) lierdatc.) 

The Fountain. J ' 

Right and Wrong in Boston. Parts 1, 2, 3. By M. W. Chapman. 

Memoir of William Wilbekfouce. By Thomas Price. 2d American edition. 

Epistle to the Clergy of the Southern States. By Sarah M. Grimke. 

Appeal to the Christian Women of the South. By Angelina E. Grimke. 

A Fast-Day Sermon. By Rev. E. J. Fuller. 

Address on the Fourth of July, at Boston and Salem. By Charles Fitch. 

Letter to Hon. Harrison Gray Otls, Peleg Sprague, and-RicHAP.D Fletcher. 

[By Dr. G, Bradford.] 
Archy Moore. [By Richard Hildreth.] 
Narrative of Amos Dresser, &g. &c. 

Voices of Freedom. By John G. Whittier. [This little volume went through 
many editions.] 

1837. 
John Quincy Adams's 4th of July Oration at Newburyport. 
Liberty. A Collection of Sentiments. Compiled by .Julius R. Ames. 
Sentiments Expressed by Southerners. " " " 

Historical Evidence concerning the Effects of Immediate Emancipation. 
Letter of Gerrit Smith to Rev. Jajies Smylie, of Mississippi. 
The War in Texas ; — to reestablish, extend and perpetuate Slavery. 
Discourse on American Slavery, atMendon, Mass., July 4, 1837. By Adin Ballou. 
John Quincy Adams's Letters to his Constituents, and Speech in Congress, &c. 
Appeal to the Women of the nominally Free States, by Anti-Slavery Convention of 

American Women. 
Letter to the Hon. Henry Clay, on the Annexation of Texas to tho United States. 

By William E. Channing. 
Letter of William E. Channing to James G. Birney. [Written in 183G.] 
Slavery Illustrated in its Effects upon Woman, &c. By Miss Grimke. 
These Bad Times the product of Bad Morals. Sermon by Rev. S. J. May. 
Remarks of Henry B. Stanton in the Representatives' Hall, Feb. 22 and 23, 1837. 
Does the Bible Sanction Slavery ? 
The " Negro Pew," &c. 

Slaveholding Weighed in the Balance of Truth. By Charles Fitch. 
Views on Colonization. By Rev. James Nourse. 
An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism- By Catharine E. Beecher. 
Speech of Hon. William Slade, of Vermont, on the Abolition of Slavery and the 

Slave Trade in the District of Columbia. House of Representatives, Dec. 20. 
Proceedings of Convention of Ministers on tho subject of Slavery, in Worcester 

County, Dec. 5 and 6, 1837 ; and, by adjournment, January, 1838. Speech at 

said Convention, by Rev. George Allen. 
Treatise on the Intellectual Character and Civil and Political Condition of tho Col- 
ored People of the United States. By Rev. Hosea Easton, a Colored Man. 
Constitutional Argument. By Alvan Stewart. 
Father Ward's Letter to Prof. Stuart, on Prof- Stuart's Letter to Dr. Fisic. 

[Jonathan Ward, Brentwood, N. H.] 
21 



162 CATALOGUE OF ANTI-SLAVERY 

1838. " 

Immediate Emancipation ; and Remarks on Compensation. By Charles Stuart. 

Trial of Rev. John B. Mahan, in Kentucky. 

Letters on American Slavery, addressed to Mr. Thomas Rankin. By John Rankin, 
[of Virginia, afterwards of Ohio,] Pastor of Presbyterian Church in Ripley, Ohio. 

Letters to Catharine E. Beecher. By Angelina E. Grimke. 

Letters from the West Indies. By Prof. Hovey. 

Address at the Broadway Tabernacle, New York, August 1, 1838. By Wm. Lloyd 
Garrison. 

The Generous Planter and His Carpenter Ben. (4th edition, 1838.) 

Report of a Delegate to the Women's Anti-Slavery Convention at Philadelphia. 
[With a notice of the burning of Pennsylvania Hall.] 

Emancipation in the West Indies, &c. By James A. Thome and J. Horace Kim- 
ball. . 

Narrative of James Williams, an American Slave. [Drawn up by J. G. Whittier.] 

Report on the Powers and Duties of Congress upon Slavery and the Slave Trade. 

Correspondence between Hon. F. H. Elmore and James G. Birney. 

Appeal to the Methodist Episcopal Chiy-eh. By Rev. Orange Scott. 

Proceedings of a Meeting to form the Broadway Tabernacle Anti-Slavery Society. 

Address to the Abolitionists of Massachusetts on the subject of Political Action. 
[Drafted by Ellis Gray Loring.] 

Rights of Colored Men to Suffrage, Citizenship, &c. &c. By Wm. Yates. 

Alton Trials. [Destruction of Rev. E. P. Lovejoy's Press ; and his Murder.] 

Power of Congress over the District of Columbia. By Wythe. 

The Martyr of Freedom. A Discourse at East Machias, Me. By Rev. T. T. Stone. 

Appeal of Forty Thousand Citizens, threatened with Disfranchisement. [Philadel- 
phia.] 

Present State and Condition of the Free People of Color of Philadelphia. 

A Sermon on Holding Communion with Extortioners. By John M. Putnam, Pas- 
tor of Church in Dunbarton, N. H. 

Why Work for the Slave ? By Nathaniel Southard. 

Address before the Concord (N. H.) Female Anti-Slavery Society. By Nathaniel 
P. Rogers. 

Brief Remarks on Catharine E. Beecher's Essay on Slavery. By the Author of 
" Archy Moore." ,v 

Speech of John Quincy Adams, on the Texas Question. 

Letter from James Boyle to William L. Garrison, &c. 

A Letter to the Abolitionists. By William E. Channing, D. D. 

1839 . 

The Chattel Principle the Abhorrence of Jesus Christ and His Apostles ; or. The 
New Testament against Slavery. By Beriah Green, President of Oneida In- 
stitute. 

Letter to W. E. Channing, D. D., on the Abuse of the Flag of the United States in 
the Island of Cuba, in Promoting the Slave Trade. By R. R. Madden. 

The Testimony of God against Slavery; with Notes. By Rev. LaRoy Sunderland. 

Anti-Slavery Manual. By Rev. LaRoy Sunderland. 

Report of the Holden (Mass.) Slave Case. 

Speech of Hon.- Thomas Morris, of Ohio, in Reply to the Speech of the Hon. 
Henry Clay [on Anti-Slavery Petitions]. Senate, Feb. 9, 1839. 

Trial of the Amistad African Captives, at Hartford. 



PUBLICATIONS IN AMERICA. 163 

The Martyr Age of the United States. By Harriet Martineau. 

Eemarks on the Slavery Question. Letter to Jonathan Phillips, Esq. By Wm. E. 

CHANNING. 

American Slavery as It Is : Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses. By Tueodore 

D. Weld. 
llight and Wrong in Massachusetts. By Maria Weston Chapman. 
Condition of Free People of Color in the United States. 
Condition of the People of Color in Ohio, with Interesting Anecdotes. 
Work for Abolitionists. 
Letter on the Political Obligations of Abolitionists, by James G. Birney ; With a 

Reply, by Wjt. Lloyd Garrison. 
Address before the Old Colony A, S. Society, at South Scituate, July 4. By Wjt. 

Lloyd Garrison. 
Thoughts on the Duty of the Episcopal Church in Relation to Slavery. By John 

Jay. 
The Kidnapped Clergyman ; or, Experience the best Teacher. 
An Inquiry into the Condition and Prospects of the African Race in the United 

States ; and the Means of Bettering it^ortunes. 
The North Star. Edited by John G. Whittier. 

Slaveholding a Malum in -S'e, or Invariably Sinful. By E. R. Tyler. 2d Edition. 
Introductory Lecture before the Adelphic Union. By Edmund Qtjincy. 
Anti-Slavery Lecturer. [Utica, N. Y.] 

1840. 

Africans Taken in the Amistad. President Van Buren's Message, and Documents. 

Discourse on Life and Character of Rev. Charles Follen, L.Li D.; before the Mas- 
sachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. By Samuel J. May. 

Emancipation. By William E. Ciianning. pp. 111. 

Despotism in America. By Richard Hildreth. 2d edition. 

Slavery vs. the Bible. Correspondence of the General Conference of Maine and the 
Presbytery of Tombecbee, Mississippi. With Appendix, by Cyrus P. Grosvenor. 

Familiar Letters to Henry Clay, describing a Winter in the West Indies. By J. 

J. GURNEY. 

Address from Convention of American Women to the Society of Friends, on the sub- 
ject of Slavery. 

Proceedings of the Society of Friends in the case of William Bassett. 

Pinda; a True Tale. By Maria Weston Chapman. 

Exposition of Proceedings in Relation to John P. Darg, the Elopement of his Al- 
leged Slave, &c. 

Two Sermons on the Kind Treatment, and on the Emancipation of Slaves. Preached 
at Mobile. By Rev. George F. Simmons. 

Extracts from the American Slave Code. 

1841 . 

Iniquity and a Meeting. A Discourse at Whitesboro', N. Y., Jan. 31, 1841. By 

Beriah Green. 
Three Months in Great Britain. By .James Mott. 
Right and Wrong amongst the Abolitionists of the United States. By John A. 

Collins. 
Roger S. Baldwin's Argument before the U. S. Supreme Court in the case of the 

African Cinquez or Jinque. 
Argument of John Quincy Adams in the same case. 



164 CATALOGUE OF ANTI-SLAVERT 

Correspondence between Oliver Johnson and George F. White, a Minister of the 

, Society of Friends. 
Origin and True Causes of the Texas Insurrection, commenced in 1835. By CoLua 

BUS. 

The West Indies. By Mrs. Nancy Prince. 

1842. 

Ten Years of Experience. By Maria Weston Chapman. 

Address at Lenox on Emancipation, Aug. 1st. By Wm. E. Channing. 

The American Churches the Bulwarks of American Slavery. By an American. 

[James G. Bir.vet. First published in England. 3d American Edition, 1842.] 
Correspondence of West Brookfield Anti-Slavery Society and Rev. Moses Chase. 
The Duty of the Free States. Poirts 1 and 2. Suggested by the Case of the 

" Creole." By Wm. E. Channing. 
Discourse on the State of the Country. By Rev. Caleb Stetson. 
Discourse on the Covenant with Judas. By Rev. John Pierpont. 
The Creole Case ; with the Comments of the New York American. 
Address of John Quincy Adams to his Constituents at Braintree. 
Narrative of Lunsford Lane, formerly of Raleigh, N. C. 

1843. 

Daniel O'Connell's Letter to the Cincinnati Repeal Association. 

A Sermon on Slavery. 1841; repeated and published, 1843. By Theo. Parker. 

The Brotherhood of Thieves; or, A True Picture of the American Church and Clergy. 

By Stephen S. Foster. 
Church. Affairs in West Brookfield. (With result of Council in Deacon J. Hen- 

SHAw's case.) 
Isaac T. Hopper's Narrative of Proceedings in New York Monthly Meeting against 

himself and others. 18 mo., pp. 126. 
Christmas, and Poems on Slavery, for Christmas, 1843. [By Thomas Hill, now 

President of Harvard College.] 
Poems on Slavery. By H. W. Longfellow. 
The Virginia Philosopher ^ or. Few Lucky Slave-Catchers : a Poem. [By Dr. 

Daniel Mann.] 
Address of the New England Anti-Slavery Convention to the Slaves of the United 

States; with an Address to President Tyler. 
Sermon on Slavery. By James Freeman Clarke. 
Sonnets and other Poems. By Wm. Lloyd Garrison. 
The Voice of Duty. A 4th of July Discourse at Westminster, Mass. By Adin 

Ballou. 

1844. 
View of the Action of the Federal Government in behalf of Slavery. By William 

Jay. 
Address at Concord, on Emancipation, Aug. 1st. By R. W. Emerson. 
Exposition of Difficulties in West Brookfield. [By John M. Fisk.] 
Methodist Episcopal Church and Slavery. By Luther Lee. 
The Principle of Reform. A Discourse, by Rev. Caleb Stetson. 
Thoughts on the Proposed Annexation of Texas to the United States. By Veto. 
Views of American Constitutional Law in its bearing upon American Slavery. By 

William Goodell. 
Sketches of the Life and Writings of James G. Birney. By Beriah Green. 



PUBLICATIONS IN AMERICA. 165 

1845. 

Address at Syracuse, on Emancipation, Aug. 1st. By Samfel J. May. 
-' The Constitution a Pro-Slavery Compact ; or, Seleetions from the Jladison Papers, 

<tc. [By AVexdell Phillips.] 
Can Abolitionists Vote or Take Office under the U. S. Constitution? [By Wendell 

Phillips.] 
How to Settle the Texas Question. 
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Written by 

Himself. 
Comeouterism. Duty of Secession from a Corrupt Church. By William Goodell. 
Proceedings of a Convention of Delegates on the Annexation of Texas. 
A Protest against American Slavery, by One Hundred and Seventy-Three Unitarian 

Ministers. • 

The Unconstitutionality of Slavery. By Lysander Spooner. 
Address on the Annexation of Texas, and the Aspect of Slavery in the United 

States. By Stephen C. Phillips. 
Tracts of New England Anti-Slavery Tract Association. [J. W. Alden, Agent.] 
Review of Correspondence on Slavery betw^u Rev. Drs. Fuller, of Beaufort, S. C, 

and Wayland, of Providence, R. I. By Cyrus P. Grosvenor. 
-AThe Unconstitutionality of Slavery. By G, W. F. Mellen. 

1846. 
Correspondence between Rev. Samuel H. Cox, D. D., and Frederick Douglass, a 

Fugitive Slave. 
Correspondence between the Church in Uxbridge and Dr. A. C. Taft. 
^ Papers on the Slave Power. By John G. Palfrey. 
•'' An Inquiry into the Scriptural Views of Slavery. By Albert Barnes. 

The Slave ; or, Memoirs of Archy Moore. [By Richard Hildretu.] Cih Edition, 
1846. 
'^ The Branded Hand. Trial and Imprisonment of Jonathan Walker, at Pensacola, 
Florida. 
Slavery, and the Slaveholder's Religion, &o. By Samuel Brooke. 
Address of Committee of Faneuil Hall Meeting, held Sept. 24, 1846, on the recent 
case of kidnapping [at South Boston.] 

1847. 

Glaveholding Examined in the Light of the Holy Bible. By Wm. H. Brisbane. 

Resistance to Slavery every Man's Duty. By Rev. George Allen. 

Letter from Bridgwater, England, to Bridgewater, New England, and Reply. 

Eulogy on the Life and Character of Thomas Clarkson. By Charles L. Reason. 

Address of the Macedon Convention, by AVm. Goodell and Gerrit Smith. 

Lectures before Salem Female Anti-Slavery Society. By Wm. W. Brown. 

Position and Duties of the North with regard to Slavery. By Andrew P. Peabody. 

Review of Lysander Spooner's Essay on the Unconstitutionality of Slavery. By 
AVendell Phillips. 
-' Narrative of William W. Brown, a Fugitive Slave. Written by Himself. [Re- 
peated Editions.] 

The Church as It is ; or, The Forlorn Hope of Slavery. By Parker Pillsbcry. 

Facts for the People ; Showing the Relations of the U. S. Government to Slavery, &c. 
By LoRiNG Moody. 

Life of Benjamin Lundy. 

Memoir of the Martyr Torrey. [Charles T.] 



166 CATALOGUE OF ANTI-SLAVERY 



1848, 



>y 



Letter to the People of the United States touching the Matter of Slavery. By 

Theodore Parker. 
Letters to Prof. Stowe and Dr. Bacon, &c. &o. By Amos A. Phelps. 
The Constitutionality of Slavery. [By Wm. I. Bowditch.] 
Conscience the Best Policy. The Least of Two Evils. Two Sermons, by Rev. John 

Weiss, at New Bedford. 
Letter from Frederick Douglass to his old Master, Thomas Auld. 
The Anti-Slavery Harp. A Collection of Songs. By William W. Brown. 
The Application of Religion to Politics. By James Richardson. 
The Black Code of the District of Columbia, in force Sept. 1, 1848. By W. G- 

Snethen. 
The Young Abolitionists. By J. Elizabeth Jones. 

1849 . 

Argument of Charles Sumner, Esq., against Separate Colored Schools. 

Speech in Congress of Horace Mann, on Slavery, and the Slave Trade in the Dis- 
trict of Columbia. 

A Review of the Causes and Consequences of the Mexican War. By William Jay. 

Slavery and the Constitution. By Wm. I. Bowditch. 

Statistical Inquiry into the Condition of the Free People of Color of the City and 
Districts of Philadelphia. 

Report of the Committee on Slavery to the Convention of Congregational Ministers 
of Massachusetts. Presented May 30. 

1850. 

Pictures of the Peculiar Institution, in Louisiana and Mississippi. By an Eye Wit- 
ness. 

The Anti-Slavery Reform. Its Principles and Method. By Wm. I. Bowditch. 

The Experience of Thomas Jones, a Slave for 43 years. 

Review of Webster's (7th of March) Speech on Slavery. By Wendell Phillips. 

Speech of Theodore Parker (in review of Webster's Speech.) 

Reply to Webster. By Hon. Wm. Jay. 

Discourse on Recapture of Fugitive Slaves. By Wm. C. Whitcomb, of Stoneham. 

The Fugitive Slave Law. A Discourse at West Bridgewater. By J. G. Forman. 

Proceedings of the U. S. Senate on the Fugitive Slave Bill, &c. &c. &a., with the 
Speeches of Messrs. Davis, Winthrop, and others. 

The Function and Place of Conscience. A Sermon for the Times. By Theodore 
Parker. 

The Fugitive Slave Bill, its History, &c. With an account of the Seizure of James 
Hamlet. 

The War with Mexico Reviewed. By Abiel Abbott Livermore. 

Narrative of Sojourner Truth, a Northern Slave, emancipated in 1828. 

Narrative of the Life and Travels of Mrs. Nancy Prince. 

Facts for Baptist Churches. Collected, etc., by A. T. Foss and E. Mathews, pp. 408. 

Remarks by Rev. Gt. W. Perkins on Prof. Stuart's " Conscience and the Constitu- 
tion." 

New Dangers to Freedom and New Duties for its Defenders. A Letter by Horace 
Mann. 



PUBLICATIONS IN AMERICA. 167 



1851. 



Slavery in the .United States : its Evils, Remedies, Ac. By Rev. Ephraim Peabody. 

Address before Salem Female Anti-Slavery Society. By Thomas T. Stone. 

Duty of Disobedience to Wicked Laws. A Sermon on Fugitive Slave Law. By 
Charles Beecher. 

Limits of Civil Obedience. A Discourse at Dorchester. By Nathaniel Hall. 

The Grand Issue. By Samuel Willard. 

Letter to Hon. Sajicel A. Eliot, on his Apology for Voting for the Fugitive Slave 
Bill. By Hancock. 

The Moving Power. A Discourse on the Fugitive Slave Law. By W. H. Fuuness. 

The Gospel applied to the Fugitive Slave Law. A Sermon at Hingham. By Oli- 
ver Stearns. 

Discourse on the Boston Fugitive Slave Case. By W. H. Furness. 

Conscience and the State. A Discourse in Providence. By Rev. F. H. Hedge. 

The Fugitive Slave Law. Speech in Congress of Horace Mann. 

The Fugitive Slave Law. Speech at Lancaster, by Horace Mann. 

The Chief Sins of the People. A Sermon on Fast Day. By Rev. Theo. Parker. 

The Three Chief Safeguards of Society. A Sermon. By Theodore Parker. 

Public Spirit and Mobs. Two Sermons at Springfield. By George F. Simjions. 

The Supremacy of God's Word Asserted, in opposition to the Fugitive Slave Bill. 
By Rev. Nathaniel West. 

United States vs. Charles G. Davis. 

Speech of Sajiuel J. May to the Convention of Onondaga County, on the rescue of 
Jerry. 

Letters and Speeches of Horace Mann. . 

The Higher Law tried by Reason and Authority. .-3 v '^^-^ ^/6 O /fff^^^ ^^ 

Our Nation's Sins and Christian Duty. By Daniel Foster. 

Politics and the Pulpit. Shall we Compromise ? From the Independent, 

1852. 

Examination of the Charges of Mr. John Scoble and Mr. Lewis Tappan, against 
the American Anti-Slavery Society. By Edmund Quincy. 

Services of Colored Americans in the Wars of 1776 and 1812. 8vo., pp. 40. [Sub- 
sequently enlarged to a Volume.] By Wm. C. Nell. 

Letter to Louis Kossuth, in behalf of the American Anti-Slavery Society. 8vo., 
pp. 112. [By Wm. Lloyd Garrison.] 

History of the Trial of Castner Hanway and others. 

Argument on the Fugitive Slave Law, at Syracuse. By Gerrit Smith. 

The Boston Kidnapping. A Discourse. By Theodore Parker. 

Discourse on the Death of Daniel Webster. By Theodore Parker. 

Freedom National; Slavery Sectional. Speech of Hon. Charles Sumner in the 
Senate of the United States. 

Thrice Through the Furnace. [By Mrs. Sophia L. Little.] 

The White Slave; or, Memoirs of a Fugitive. [By Richard Hildreth.] (An en- 
largement of " Archy Moore.") 

Uncle Tom's Cabin; or. Life Among the Lowly. By Harriet Beecher Stove. 
2 vols. 

Selections from the Writings and Speeches of Wm. Lloyd Garrison, pp. 41G. 

History of Slavery and Anti-Slavery. By William Goodell. pp. C04. 

Five Years' Progress of the Slave Power. 

Six Years in a Georgia Prison. By Lewis W. Paine. 



168 CATALOGUE OF ANTI-SLAVERY 



1853, 



V 



Withdrawal from American Tract Society, on the Ground of Alliance with the Slave 

Power Proved, &c. &c. By Judge \Vm. Jay. 
Our Rights as Men. An Address before Legislative Committee. By Wm. J. Watkins. 
Words for Working Men. [Including JonN Wesley's " Thoughts on Slavery."] 
A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin, &c By Harriet Beecher Stowe. Iloyal 8vo., pp. 262. 
Platform of the American Anti -Slavery Society, and its Auxiliaries, 
fellowship with Slavery. [Rhode Island Evangelical Consociation.] Rev. S. Wol- 

COTT. 

Facts and Opinions touching the American Colonization Society. By G. B. Steebins. 

[With a Preface, by Hon. Wm. Jay.] 
Miscellaneous Writings on Slavery. By Wm. Jay. Boston, 12 mo., pp. 670. 
Speeches in Congress. By Joshua R. Giddings. Boston, 12 mo., pp. 511. 
Isaac T. Hoppek ; A True Life. By L. Maria Child. 
Personal Memoir of Captain Daxiel Draitton. 
American Slave Code. By Wm. Goodell. 
White Slavery in the Barbary States. By Hon. Charles Sumner. 

1854. 

Biography of Mahommah G. Baquaqua, a Native of Africa. Detroit. 8 vo., pp. 
66. By Samuel Moore, Esq. 

The North and the South. Reprinted from the New York Tribune. 

Educational Laws of Virginia. Personal Narrative of Mrs. Margaret Douglass. 

No Compromise with Slavery. An Address in New York by Wm. Lloyd Garrison. 

The Rendition of Anthony Burns. By Wm. I. Bowditch. 

Eeform and Repeal. Legal Anarchy. Two Sermons by Rev. John Weiss. 

Christian Duty. Three Discourses with reference to the Enforcement of the Fugi- 
tive Slave Law in Boston and New York. By W. H. Furness. 

The New Crime against Humanity. A Sermon, by Theodore Parker. (June 4.) 

The New Commandment. A Discourse at Salem, by 0. B. Frothingham. (June 4.) 

Massachusetts in Mourning. A Sermon in Worcester, by T. W. Higginson. (June 4.) 

The Bad Friday. A Sermon in West Roxbury, by E. B. Willson. (Juno 4.) 

The Rendition of Anthony Burns, its Causes and Consequences. A Discourse in 
Boston, by J. F. Clarke. (June 4.) 

The Crisis of Freedom. A Sermon at Lynn, by Samuel Johnson. (June 11.) 

The Laws of God and the Statutes of Man. A Sermon by Theodore Parker. 
(June 18.) 

Sermon of the Dangers which Threaten the Rights of Man in America. By Theo- 
dore Parker. (July 2.) 

West India Emancipation. A Speech at Abington, Aug. 1. By Wm. Lloyd Gar 

BISON. 

Address at Quincy. By Charles Francis Adams. 

Our Country's Sin. A Sermon to the Nestorian Mission in Persia. By Rev. Justin 

Perkins, D. D. 
Autographs for Freedom. 

Despotism in America. [Enlarged edition.] By R. Hildreth. 
Narrative of Lewis and Milton Clarke ; once Slaves in Kentucky. 

1855. 

The Boston Mob of " Gentlemen " — of 1836. Proceedings of the Twentieth Anni 
versary of said Mob. 



PUBLICATIONS IX AMERICA, 169 

A Series of Twenty Tracts of the American Anti-Slavery Society. [These Tracts 
were by AV. I. Bowditch, Esq., lion. J. G. Palfrey, Mrs. M. W. Chapman, Mrs. 
Harriet B. Stowe, Mrs. Follen, T. W. Higginson, S. S. Foster, 0. B. Froth- 
INGHAM, R. HiLDRETH, Samuel May, Jr., C. C. BuRLEiGH, Miss S. C. Cabot* 
Rev. Charles Beecher, C. K. Whipple, Miss Jane Whiting. 

Narrative of Facts in the Case of Passmore Williamson. 

Sketches of Slave Life, &c. By Peter Randolph, an Emancipated Slave. [With 
Preface, by SAMrEL May, Jr.] 

Letters on Slavery to Pro-Slavery Men. By 0. S. Freeman. [Dr. Rogers.] 

The Trial of Theodore Parker, for the " Misdemeanor" of a Speech in Faneuil Hall 
against Kidnapping, before the Circuit Court of the United States, April 3, 1855. 
With the Defence, by Theodore Parker. 

Argument of Wendell Phillips, Esq., before Committee on Federal Relations, in 
support of the Petitions for the Removal of Edward Greeley Loring from office of 
Judge of Probate. 

Principles of the Revolution. By Joshua P. Blanchard. , 

Report of Radical Political Abolitionists' Convention, at Syracuse. 

Proceedings of the First State Convention of the Colored Citizens of the State of 
California. Sacramento. 

My Bondage and My Freedom. By Frederick Douglass. 

Speeches by Gerrit Smith. 

Memoir of Henry Bibb, a Fugitive Slave. 

The Hour and the Man. By Harriet Martineau. 

Writings and Speeches on Slavery. By Alvan Stewart. 

Twelve Years a Slave. Narrative of Solomon Northup. [A Northern man Kid- 
napped.] 

Additional Speeches, Addresses, &c. By Theodore Parker. 

An Inside V^iew of Slavery ; or, A Tour Among the Planters. By C. G. Parsons, M. D. 

The North -Side View of Slavery; the Canadian Refugees' own Narratives. By 
Benjamin Drew. 

Caste; A Story of Republican Equality. By Sidney A. Stort, Jr. 

Biography of an American Bondman. By his Daughter. 

1856. 

Wolfsden. By Dr. Daniel Mann. 

The Crimes against Kansas. Speech of Hon. Charles Sttmner, in the United States 
Senate, May 19 and 20. 

Six Months in Kansas. By a Lady of Boston. 

Dred : A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp. By Harriet Beecher Stowe. 

The Kidnapped and the Ransomed : being the Personal Recollections of Peter Still 
and his wife Vina, after forty years of Slavery. With a Biographical Sketch of 
Seth Concklin. By W. H. Fcrness, D. D. 

Anthony Burns ; A History. By Charles Emery Stevens. 

Condition of the Free and Slave States. By Henry Chase and Charles W. San- 
born. « 

Address on the Power of the Slave States, and the Duties of the Free States. By 

JOSIAH QUINCY. 

Address before the Citizens of Cambridge. By Joel Parker. [Relating to Slave- 
ry in the Territories, its Extension, &c.] 

History of the Struggle for Slavery Extension or Bestriotion in the United States. 
By HoRAOE Greelet. 

31 



170 CATALOGUE OF ANTI-SLAVERY 

Speech of Rev. 0. B. Frothixgham, before American Anti-Slavery Society. 

The Sumner Outrage. Meeting at Cambridge, with the Speeches. 

Case of Passmore Williamsox. Proceedings of Court, &c. 

A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States, &c. &c. By Frederick Law Olmstead. 
pp. 723. 

Whig Policy Analyzed and Illustrated. By Josiah Quincy. 

The Responsibility of the North in relation to Slavery : Cambridge. 

Triumph of Equal School Rights in Boston. Proceedings of a Meeting, &c., De- 
cember 17, 1855. 

A Review of the Official Apologies of the American Tract Society. 

Kansas, her Struggle and her Defence. By Rev. J. E. Ray. 

The Anti-Slavery Movement. A Lecture by Frederick Douglass. 

Revolution or Reform. By Edmund H. Sears. 

1857 . 

Letter to the Committee of the American Tract Society. By Wm. Jay. 

The New Revolution. A Speech by Thomas W. Higginsox. 

The Genius and Posture of America. A 4th of July Oration at Boston. By Wm. 
R. Alger. 

Significance of the Struggle between Liberty and Slavery. A Discourse at Port- 
land. By Rev. Frederick Frjthingham. 

Manifest Destiny of the American Union. Reprinted from the Westminster Review. 
[By Harriet Martineau.] 

Autobiography of a Female Slave. [By Miss Mattie Griffith.] 

The Impending Crisis of the South, &c. By Hixton Rowan Helper, pp. 420. 

The Legion of Liberty and Force of Truth. [Compiled by J. R. Ames.] A new 
Edition, pp. 336. 

Journey Through Texas. By Fred. Law Olmstead. 

Is Slavery a Blessing ? Reply to Prof. Bledsoe's Essay, &c. By a Citizen of the 
South. 

Church and Slavery. By Rev. Albert Barnes. 

Slavery. By Rev. Albert Barnes. 

God against Slavery. By Rev. G. B. Cheeyer, D. D. 

Herod, John, and Jesus ; or, the Christian Cure for Slavery. By A. D. Mayo. 

To the Friends of the A. B. C. F. M. By C. K. W. 

1858. 

The Southern Platform ; or. Manual of Southern Sentiment on Slavery. By Dan 
lEL R. Goodloe. 

Proceedings of the Free Convention at Rutland, Vt. [Slavery in part.] 

The Suppressed Tract ! and The Rejected Tract ! [American Tract Society.] 

The Family Relation as Affected by Slavery. [By C. K. Whipple.] 

Address of the American Tract Society, Boston. 

The Bible against Oppression. [No. 1 of the (Boston) American Tract Society.] 

The Escape ; or, A Leap for Freedom. A Drama. By Wm. Wells Brown. 

The Exiles of Florida ; or. The Crimes of our Government against the Maroons, 
etc. By J. R. Giddings. 12 mo., pp. 338. 

Father Henson's Story of his own Life. With an Introduction, by Mrs. H. B. Stowe. 

Proceedings of the Anti-Slavery Convention at West Randolph, Vt. Aug., 1858. 

Speech of Rev. Henry Bleby, Missionary from Barbadoes, on the Results of Eman- 
cipation in the British West India Colonies. 



PUBLICATIONS IN AMERICA. 171 

The Sin of Slavery, the Guilt of the Church, and Duty of the Ministry. By Rev. 

Geoi'.ge B. Cheever, D. D, 
The Fire and Hammer of God's Word against the Sin of Slavery. By Rev. Geouge 

B. Cheevee, D. D. 

1859 . 
Statistics of Free and Slave Labor in the United States of America. By Jas. Haugh- 

TOJf. 

The Right of Property in Man [considered.] A Discourse. By W. H. Furness. 

The Blessings of Abolition. A Discourse. By W. H. Ftjrness. 

To the Friends of Equal Rights in Rhode Island. [On the Schools.] By George 
T. DowxixG and others. 

The Methodist Church and Slavery. By Charles K. Whipi'Le. 

No Slave-hunting in the old Bay State. Speech of Cuarles C. Burleigh. (January.) 

No Slave-hunting in the old Baj' State. Speech of Wexdell Phillips, before Le- 
gislative Committee on Federal Relations. (February.) 

The American Tract Society, Boston. [Bj' C. K. Whipple.] 

Slavery and the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. [By C. 
K. Whipple.] 

Great Auction Sale of Slaves at Savannah, Georgia, March, 1859. [Slaves of Pierce 
M. Butler,^ of Philadelphia.] 24 mo., pp. 28. 

" No Fetters in the Bay State." Speech of Wji. Lloyd Garrison before Legisla- 
tive Committee on Federal Relations. (February.) 

Present Condition of the Free Colored People of the United States. By Rev. James 
F. Clarke. [From Christian Examiner for March, 1859.] 

The Slave Auction. By Dr. Joiix Theophiltis Kramer, late of New Orleans, La. 

iVaternity Lecture, by W«^dell Phillips, Esq. ; also, his Letter to Judge Shaw 
and President Wallfer. (October.) 

Sermon on the Tragedy at Harper's Ferry. By Rev. George B. Cheever^ D. D. 
(November.) 

Causes and Consequences of the Affair at Harper's Ferry. A Sermon by James F. 
Clarke. (November.) 

Harper's Ferry and its Lesson. A Sermon for the Times. By Rev. E. M. Whee- 
LOCK. (November.) 

Two Sermons on Slavery and its Hero Victim. By Rev. Nathaniel Hall. (De- 
cember.) 

Tribute to the Memory of Charles F. Hovey, Esq. [Died April 28, 1859.] 

The Fellowship of Slaveholders Incompatible with a Christian Profession. 

The Lesson of the Hour. Lecture at Brooklyn, November 1, 1859. By Wendell 
Phillips. 

The Natick Resolution ; or. Resistance to Slaveholders, &,c. &c. By Henry C. 
Wright. 

Memoir of the Life of J. W. Loguen. 

The Roving Editor ; or. Talks with Slaves. By James Redpath. 

1860. 

A Series of Twenty-Five Tracts (new) of the American Anti-Slavery Society. 
[These Tracts were by Mrs. L. Maria Child, Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Joshua Cof- 
fin, Wendell Phillips, Samuel May, .Jr., and others.) 

Review of Gov. Banks's Veto on EnrT>lment of Colored Militia. By F. W. Bird. 

No Rights, No Duties. Letter of Henry C. Wright to Hon. Henry Wilson. 

Harper's Ferry Invasion. Senate Document. 



172 CATALOGUE OP ANTI-SLAVERY 

The Guilt of Slavery and the Crime of Slaveholding demonstrated from the Hebrew 

and Greek Scriptures. By Rev. George B. Cheever, D. D. pp. 472. 
Demonstrations in favour of Dr. Cheever, in Scotland. Speeches of Drs. Candlish, 

Guthrie, Alexander, and others. 
The American Board and American Slavery. Speech of Theodore Tilton, 'at 

Brooklyn. (January.) 
Harrington ; a Story of True Love. [By Wm. D. O'Connor.] 

The John Brown Invasion. An Authentic History of the Harper's Ferry Tragedy. 
John Brown's Expedition Reviewed, in a Letter from Theodore Parker, at Rome, 

to Francis Jackson, in Boston. 
The Anti-Slavery History of the John Brown Year. [Being Annual Report of the 
American Anti-Slavery Society, for the year ending May 1, I860.] 
•^ The Public Life of Captain John Brown. By James Redpath. 
s/ Echoes of Harper's Ferry. By James Redpath. 

.,/ The Barbarism of Slavery. Speech of Hon. Charles Sumner, in the United States 
Senate, June 4, 1860. 

186 1. 

Emancipation ; Its Justice, Expediency, and Necessity. An Address' at Boston, 
by Hon. George S. Boutwell. 

Relation of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions to Slavery. 
By Charles K. Whipple. 

The Uprising of a Great People. By Count Gasparin. [Translated by Mary L. 
Booth.] 

The War for the Union. A Lecture in New York, by Wendell Phillips. De- 
cember, 1861. 
. The War of Secession. By Joshua P. Blanchard. 

A Voice from Harper's Ferry. By Osborne P. Anderson. [One of John Brown's 
men.] 

Linda. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Written by herself. [Mrs. Harriet 
Jacobs.] Edited by Mrs. L. Maria Child. 

Sermons and Speeches of Gerbit Smith, New York. pp. 198. 

The Life and Letters of Captain John Brown, &c., with Notices of some of his Con- 
federates. Edited by Richard D. Webb. London. Not re-published, but ex- 
tensively circulated, in this country. 

1862. 

Emancipation in the West Indies. By F. B. Sanborn. 
The Birth and Death of Nations. By James McKaye. 

The Rejected Stone ; or. Insurrection vs. Resurrection in America. By a Native of 
Virginia. [Rev. M. D. Conway.] 12 mo., pp. 131. 

- The Golden Hour. By Moncure D. Conway, pp. 160. 

The Ordeal of Free Labor in the British West Indies. By Wm. G. Sewell. pp 325. 
Discourse before American Baptist Home Missionary Society, at Providence, May 

29, 1862. " God Timing all National Changes," &c. By Rev. Dr. William R. 

Williams. 

- Record of an Obscure Man. "^ 

Tragedy of Errors, > By Mrs. Mary Lowell Putnam. 

Tragedy of Success. } 

The Story of the Guard : A Chronicle of the War. By Jessie Benton Fremont. 
The Abolitionists, and their Relation to the War. A Lecture in New York, by Wm. 
Lloyd Garrison, January, 1862. 



I Translated by Mary L. Booth. 



PUBLICATIONS IN AMERICA. 173 

Speech of Gerrit Smith on the Country. At New York, December 21, 1862. 

The True Story of the Barons of the South. By E. W. Rey.nolds. With an In- 
troduction, by Rev. S. J. May. 

Historical Notes on the Employment of Negroes in the American Army of the Rev- 
olution. By George H. Mooue, Librarian of New York Historical Society. 

Among the Pines ; or. South in Secession Time. By EwiUM) Ivibile. 

1863. 

Speeches, Lectures, and Letters. By Wendell Phillips, pp. 5C2. 

The Black Man, his Antecedents, his Genius, and his Achievements. By Wm. Wells 
Brown. 12 mo., pp. 288. 

Cochin. The Results of Slavery. 

" The Results of Emancipation. 

Discourse of Wendell Phillips, Esq., on a Metropolitan Police. 

The Negro. A Speech in New York, by Theodore Tilton. (May.) 

The New Gospel of Peace. In two Parts. 

An Historical Research respecting the Opinions of the Founders of the Republic, on 
Negroes as Slaves, as Citizens, and as Soldiers. Read before the Massachusetts 
Historical Society. By George Livermore. 

Songs of the Freedmen of Port Royal. By Miss Lucy McKim. 

My Southern Friends. By Edmund Kirke. 

Preliminary Report Touching the Condition and Management of Emancipated Ref- 
ugees ; made to the Secretary of War by the American Freedmen's Inquiry Com- 
mission, June 30, 1863. [Robert Dale Owen, James McKaye, Samuel G. 
Howe, Commissioners.] 

The Anti-Slavery Poetry of John G. Whittier, John Pierpont, James Russell 
Lowell, George S. Burleigh, Julia AVard Howe, and others, never wanting in 
rebuke of the wrong, or in animating support of the right, rendered unspeakable 
service to the cause at every stage of its progress. 



SOCIETIES, CONVENTIONS, &c. 

Constitution of the New England Anti-Slavery Society; with an Address to the 

Public. 1832. 
Annual Reports of Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. [Formed 1831 ; originally 
called New England Anti-Slavery Society. Reports continued to 1853 ; then 
merged in American Society's Reports.] 
Proceedings of the Anti-Slavery Convention at Philadelphia, Dec. 4, 5, and 6, 1833. 
Annual Reports of American Anti-Slavery Society. [Formed December, 1833.] 
Report and Proceedings of Providence Anti-Slavery Society. AVith an Exposition 

of the Principles and Purposes of the Abolitionists. By S. J. May. 1833. 
Proceedings of New England Anti-Slavery Convention. 1834, 1835, 1836, 1837. 
Annual Reports of Rhode Island Auti-Slavery Society. 

" " New Ilauipshiro " " 1835, &c. 

" " Pennsylvania " " 

" " Boston Female " " [Commencing 1834.] 

Address of New York Young Men's Anti-Slavery Society. 1834. 
Proceedings of New Hampshire Anti-Siavery Convention, at Concord, Nov., 1834. 
" " Ohio " " at Putnam, April, 1835. 

First Annual Report of Union College Anti-Slavery Society. 1836. 



174 CATALOGUE OF ANTI-SLAVEKY 

Proceedings of the New York Anti-Slavery Convention at Utica ; and New Fork 
Anti-Slavery Society, held at Peterboro'. Oct., 1835. 

First Annual Report of Union College Anti-Slavery Society. With an Address. 
By George L. LeRow. 1836. 

Address of the New York City An'ti-SIavery Society. 1833. 

First Annual Report of Ladies' New York City Anti-Slavery Society. 1836. 

Proceedings of First Annual Meeting of New York State Anti-Slavery Society, at 
Utica. 1836. 

Proceedings of Pennsylvania Convention, at Harrisburg. 1837. 

Annual Reports of Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society. [First published 
Report in 1837 ; continued to present time.] 

Annual Reports of American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. [Formed 1840.] 

Proceedings of American Anti-Slavery Society at its Second Decade. 1853. 

" of Pennsylvania Yearly Meeting of Progressive Friends. [Commenc- 
ing 1853 ; continued to present time.] 

First Annual Report of New York Anti-Slavery Society. 1854. 

Reports of the National Anti-Slavery Bazaar, held in Boston. 1855. 1858. 

Proceedings of the State Disunion Convention at Worcester, Mass. 1857. 

Legislative Documents of various States. 

Congressional Documents. 

Issues of the Loyal Publication Societies of New York, Philadelphia, and Boston. 



ANTI-SLAVERY JOURNALS AND PERIODICALS. 

The- Genius of Universal Emancipation. Benjamin Lundy, Editor. Commenced 
in or near 1821, at Baltimore. 

The Liberator. William Lloyd Garrison, Editor. Commenced January 1, 1831, 
at Boston, and still continued. 

The Emancipator. Commenced 1834, at New York ; continued about ten years. 

Herald of Freedom. Edited in succession by .Joseph Horace Kimball, (3 years ;) 
Nathaniel Peabody Rogers, (6 years ;) and Parker Pillsbury, (2 years.) Com- 
menced at Concord, New Hampshire, in 1835 ; continued till June, 1846. 

The National Enquirer. Benjamin Lundy, Editor. Commenced at Philadelphia, 
1836 ; continued two years. 

The Pennsylvania Freeman.* John G. Whittier, first Editor. Commenced at 
Philadelphia, 1838 ; continued to 1854. 

The Massachusetts Abolitionist. Amos A. Phelps, Editor. Commenced at Bos- 
ton, 1838. United with Emancipator soon after. 

The Cradle OF Liberty. William Lloyd Garrison, Editor. 1839. 

The National Philanthropist. Cincinnati. 

*A11 know what service Mr. Whittier has rendered to the Anti-Slavery cause by his 
poetry. It is not so generally known how much labor he has performed as an Anti- 
Slavery editor. He first edited, in 1836, the Essex Gazette, (Haverhill,) then the 
organ of the Essex County Anti-Slavery Society ; next, the Pennsylvania Freeman, 
(Philadelphia,) organ of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society, in 1838 and 1839 ; 
the Anti-Slavery Reporter, (New York,) in 1841 ; the Emancipator, (New York,) 
for a short period in 1844 ; the Middlesex Standard, (Lowell,) 1845 ; was assistant 
editor of the Essex Transcript, 1846 ; and corresponding editor of the National Era, 
(Washington,) from 1847 to 1853. 



PUBLICATIONS IN AMERICA. 175 

The National Axti-Slaveby Standard. Successively edited by Nathaniel P. Rog- 
ers ; David L. and Lydia Maria Child ; Maria W. Chapman and others ; Sydney 
H. Gay; Edmund Quincy; Oliver Johnson. Commenced Juno, 1840 ; continued 
to present time. 

The Herald of Freedoj:. Edited by N, P. Rogers. Commenced at Concord, New 
Hampshire, March, 1845 ; but soon afterwards removed to Lynn, Mass., and 
united with the Pioneer. 

The Anti-Slatery Bugle ; commenced at Salem, Ohio, 1845. Continued until 
1861. 

The North Star. Frederick Douglass, Editor, Commenced at Rochester, N. Y., 
December, 1847 ; afterwards called " Frederick Douglass's Paper " ; discontin- 
ued 1863. 

The National Era. Gamaliel Bailey, Editor. Commenced at "Washington, 1847; 
continued about twelve years. 

The Radical Abolitionist. William Goodell, Editor. Commenced about 1855 ; 
discontinued 1859. 

The Anglo-African. New York. 

The Principia. William Goodell, Editor. Commenced at New York, 1859 ; still 
continued. 

Voice of Freedom. C. L. Knapp, Editor, Montpelier, Vt. 1839. •• 

Alton Observer. Elijah P. Lovejoy, Editor. Alton, 111. 1837. 

Charter Oak. William H. Burleigh, Editor. Hartford, Conn. 

Human Rights. LaRoy Sunderland, Editor. 

Free Press. Utica, N. Y. 1845. 

Indiana Freeman. 

Liberty Gazette. Burlington, Vt. 

Albany Patriot. William L. Chaplin, Editor. 1846. 

Granite Freeman. 1846. 
Note. Numerous journals, both at an early and a more recent date, were in part 

open to the advocacy of the Anti-Slavery cause, but also included a predominant 

range of other subjects, political, sectarian, and moral. Many of them rendered 

effective service to the Anti-Slavery reform. 



Anti-Slavery Reporter. Commenced June, 1833. 

Anti-Slatery Record. 1835. 

Quarterly Anti-Slavery Magazine. Elizur Wright, Jr., Editor. 1835-37. 

Anti-Slavery Examiner. 1838, &o. 

The Slate's Friend. For Children. 

The Monthly Offering. John A. Collins, Editor. 1841, ic. 

The Anti-Slavery Almanac was first published in 1836, by the American Anti- 
Slavery Society. Continued several years. 

The Liberty Bell. Edited and published annually in Boston, by Maria Weston 
Chapman. 1843 to 1858, (one or two years being omitted.). 



Erratum. In Mrs. Mott's speech, for Ralph Sangerford, read Sandiford. 



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G. r. 0.. Feb.. "Oft, 



